The Ducie Island, VP6DX DXpedition

The International DXpedition to Ducie Island, VP6DX in the South Pacific will be on the air February 10 through 28.

At present containers with equipment are on their way to New Zealand.

The team led by the German DXer Carsten, DL6LAU, comprises outstanding operators from Germany, Estonia, USA, Russia, Poland and Greece. They will set up 7 stations; 5 of them will have a kilowatt amplifier provided by the Bulgarian private company ACOM and two of them will be used at 100 watts.

A variety of antennas will be used: on 160 meters phased, linear loaded verticals, on 80 metres two 4-squares for SSB and CW at the same time, on 40 and 30 meters – 4-squares, on 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10 meters – phased vertical dipoles and on 6 meters – a Yagi beam antenna.

Ducie Island, a rarely visited island atoll, has been part of the Pitcairn Islands since 1902. There are no permanent inhabitants. The atoll is located 540 km east of Pitcairn and has a total area, including the lagoon, of 3.9 sq. km. There are four islets on the rim of the atoll. The land area is 0.7 sq. km.

Portuguese sailor Pedro Fernandez de Quiros discovered Ducie on January 26, 1606 and named it La Encarnacion.
It was later rediscovered by the British in 1791 by Captain Edward Edwar who commanded the Pandorra while searching for the mutineers from the Bounty. Ducie Island is named after Baron Ducie, a captain in the Royal Navy.

The island was claimed in 1867 for the United States under the Guano Islands Act and the UK annexed the island in 1902.

Source: Radio Bulgaria DX Programme