HA (Banaba) South Pacific Tour rescheduled

[Stacey King]

Tuesday, 23 August 2011 16:53

Due to difficulties in organizing and making arrangement for the transportation to Banaba, we decided to reschedule the expedition to January/February 2012.

We will leave Budapest on 8 January. The operation will start from Tuvalu, on 12 January, as T2HA. We will be back to Fiji on 26 January and 3 days of operation can be expected as 3D2HA. We will leave for Tarawa, on 31 January. Operation from Kiribati will take place till 23 February. We will attempt to go over Banaba for 7-10 days within this period. We will do our best to get over to Banaba, but the exact time of T33HA Banaba operation can be announced from Tarawa only. Two stations will be on the air from 160-10 meters bands on CW, SSB, RTTY and some PSK and SSTV modes.

The landing permit to Banaba, licenses and flight tickets to Fiji, Tuvalu and Tarawa are in hand. The radios, antennas, PA's and other technical stuff have already been put together and packed. The weight of these packages exceeds the 100 kg (200 pounds). We will bring everything with us, as excess baggages. This DX pedition is not an expedition with dozen of operators, neither a family holiday. It will be a "simple two men show". However our 8 weeks long operating plan, working from 3 different rare countries, make it very expensive. We will cover the flight tickets, accommodations and other personal expenses. The excess baggage fees and the transfer to Banaba are extremely expensive. Thus we are seeking support from DX Foundations and Organisations to help us to cover the extremely high transfer expenses to Banaba and the excess baggage fees. Personal contributions are also welcomed.

Landing permit and license to Banaba received

Friday, 01 July 2011 17:16

We are happy to inform you, that we have received the licenses to Banaba (Ocean Island) and Tarawa, as well. The assigned call signs are: T33HA and T30HA. The landing permit to Banaba Island has also been granted by the Council of Elder.
However the exact time of the Banaba operation can not be determined at the present state of affairs. It highly depends on the boat transfer schedule, which is still unknown. Operation from Tarawa as T30HA, can be expected before and after the Banaba activation. We will keep you informed.