Netherlands Antilles

The following press release was received by John Barcroft, K6AM, dated August 26th:

New DXCC Operations on Curacao starting 10-10-10

As many of you know by now, the Netherlands Antilles will likely be dissolved as a country on October 10, 2010. Several new DXCC entities will result from this change including the addition of the island of Curacao (PJ2) as a new DXCC entity separate from Bonaire (PJ4).

Since this will meet the criteria for a new DXCC entity, we expect all operations to be accepted as of 10/10/10. While ARRL approval is not 100% guaranteed, and may not be officially announced until all DXCC requirements are documented, plans are in place to mount several operations from the Signal Point super-station, PJ2T on Curacao beginning on day one.

The first operation runs from Oct 10 until Oct 18 with a group led by K8ND. They will be followed closely by a team of nine operators from the U.S. and Germany who will be there through November 2nd including a M/M entry in the CQWW SSB contest.

We will be using both PJ2/homecall and PJ2T during the 3-week run. We will be on all bands before the contest,
including 6 meters, running CW, SSB and RTTY. Considering the number of simultaneous new entity operations, frequencies will be selected to avoid interference.

The GAREC conference (http://www.garec.net/) is being held on Curacao October 11-12th, and we will be opening the PJ2T station to any of the participating amateurs from around the world who wish to operate in their free time before or after the conference. The station will also be open
to any local Curacao amateurs who wish to operate from Signal Point during the post 10-10-10 week.

These will not be sponsored expeditions nor are donations being solicited. The operators involved are covering all costs.

QSL as instructed on QRZ.com"

OPDX