4W6 expedition scheduled

Announcing DXpedition to East Timor

The Union de Radioaficionados Españoles, URE, the Spanish Amateur Radio League, is proud to announce a project in East Timor to take place in June 2008.

URE's Radiosolidarity Department will organize an Amateur Radio DXpedition, combined with activities to promote Amateur Radio including the donation and setting up of a complete amateur radio station at the University of Dili. It is hoped that by operating alongside students and teachers of the Electrical Engineering and other departments it will be possible to sow the seeds of future amateur radio activity of a permanent nature in East Timor.

During the last few years URE's Radiosolidarity has been involved in projects in the following countries:

1998-TJ2RSF-Cameroun [ in collaboration with RSF] 1998/1999-Cuba [campaign of donation of material] 1999-HU4U-El Salvador 2000-HQ0R-Honduras 2001-TG0R-Guatemala 2003-ZA1A-Albania [an IARU project] 2004-7W0AD-Algeria 2004-T42R-Cuba 2005-TZ6DEL-Mali 2007-T42R-Cuba 2007-HQ2R-Honduras

This new project will take place in cooperation with the University of Dili, located in the capital of East Timor. We don't yet know the callsign that will be used; whether it will be a special one for the occasion, hopefully 4W6R, the callsign of the University (4W6UTL) or the callsign of one of the operators (4W6ERC).

The group that will take part in the activity is made up of the following experienced operators:

EA1QF Angel (team leader)
EA3CUU Pere
EA4DB (ex-EA4BPJ) Jose
EA4KA Eugene
EA5BWR Txema
CT1ERC Jose

QSLs will be via EA4URE.

A complete station (Kenwood TS690 + Mosley TA63M + G5RV + rotor) will be donated to and installed at the University of Dili for use of the students and teachers of the Electrical Engineering Department or anyone else who might be interested in Amateur Radio. Another station will be set up, temporarily, at the team´s lodgings in order to have two stations (CW and SSB) operating permanently during the 15 days of operation. Time will be spent on other modes (RTTY, etc) and special attention will be paid to operation on six meters.

The majority of this project's funding is provided by the Alicante Provincial Government and by URE. The rest of the budget, at this time, will be down to the operators although we have already received news of some small but useful donations. We would be very grateful if individuals and organisations could consider making contributions to this project at any time, including after the operation. Please bear in mind the following two considerations.

The objective of this project is to contribute to the development of a very young country and to promote amateur radio activity by East Timor nationals.

The DXpedition is part of the activity is intended to achieve 30,000 plus QSOs in spite of the limitations imposed on us. We feel able to achieve this due to the very considerable experience of our six-man team of proven DXpedition operators