Vietnam DXpedition - very rare IOTA

An international group of amateur radio operators will be active as 3W6C from Con Co Island (AS-185), Vietnam, in April 10-18th, 2010.

This multi-national project, being coordinated by Swiss ham radio operators, consists of roughly 20 individuals including one woman, and members not only from Switzerland, but also from Vietnam, Germany, USA and Japan.

Operators mentioned as of today:
Team Leader Hans-Peter HB9BXE, Jan DJ8NK, Hans HB9BHW, Rene HB9BQI, Christine HB9BQW, Thomas HB9BSH, Hans-Jurg HB9DKZ, Paul HB9DST/AA1MI,
Friedhelm HB9JBI, Matthias HB9JCI, Peter HB9PJT, Rolf HB9TVR, Bob K4UEE, Eddy XV1X, Bac XV2A, Quang XV2B, Michal XV9DX and Torsten XV9TH.

During their stay they plan to have 4 stations on the air. Their goal is to make contacts on as many different frequencies as possible, even on the 80 meter and 160 meter bands which makes this DXpedition very special.

Announced this past week, the team will also be on the satellites. The crew will use a FT-897 TRX with homebrewed "Easysat" - antenna for 2m and 70cm and a home-brewed 10m cross-dipole.

The following satellite will be used: AO-07*, AO-51*,
HO-68*, SO-50 and SO-67 (*first priority - not all overflights and sats will be used). Please note, that only AO-07 will be activated in the SBB/CW-mode. All other satellites are in the FM-mode.

The main areas in the footprint are: East-Asia, Japan, China, India, Australia and eastern part of Russia. If possible, the 3W6C Team will also use some DX-Windows to near east and west part of Russia. Operation note:

The main operator for the satellites is Hans-Peter HB9BXE. Hans-Peter doesn't use a CAT-Interface for doppler correction. The equipment is in full manual use.
It is important to know that Hans-Peter doesn't hear his own downlink. For AO-07, he will not make any doppler correction in his uplink. Hans-Peter will search some signals +/- 5 kHz around the downlink frequency (quasi splitmode like shortwave). If there is a pileup on the satellite, please use only callsign, signal strength and grid square.

All crew members are primary shortwave operators.
So please be patient if they have some troubles with the sat-operation.

Complete details about the 3W6C operation are available at: http://www.3w6c.qrv.ch

OPDX