T2C Tuvalu

T2C Team will be active from Funafuti, Tuvalu, IOTA OC - 015, 10 - 30 October 2023.
Team - DG2RON, DJ7TO, DJ9KH, DJ9RR, DK3CG, DL1KWK, DL2RNS, DL4SVA, DL6KAC, DL7JOM, DL7VEE.
They will operate on 160 - 6m Bands, CW, SSB, Digital modes.
QSL via DL4SVA, LOTW.

T2C Funafuti Tuvalu News 19 October 2023

T2C News #8 (OCT 19, 2023)
After 9 days on Funafuti Island, we conclude that the Funafuti Lagoon Hotel is not the best QTH for a ham radio operation but maybe the only one for a bigger group. Space for antennas is heavily limited with currently no way for an installation directly on the beach. We experienced a lot of noise on the lowbands originating from the hotel buildings. We installed two BOGs overnight in the construction area away from the hotel. These antennas help a lot to improve the receiving situation from 40 to 160 m. During the day, the BOGs must be dismantled due the work of the constructionmachines on this area. Conditions are generally poor on the lowbands, but fine above five MHz. 10 and 12 m show excellent signals over many hours. A surprise was 6 m. Contacts on 6 m were made with 5W, 3D2, BV, JA, VK, BA, PY, CE, YB, VR2, KH2, KH6. As an absolute highlight, we had an unexpected short opening to Italy and Sardinia on this band.

Despite these challenging conditions, the team is quite happy with the achieved QSOs. Up to now, we made over 70.000 contacts. Fortunately, we had no power outages so far. Most of the air conditioners are running day and night. The LTE internet is slow and expensive. The hotel WiFi is mostly close to unusable.

Yesterday Fred, DH5FS, and Christian, DL6KAC, gave a 30-minute interview, which will be broadcasted on the local AM radio station.

Bad News: Two Expert amplifiers died. We will see how to continue with this challenging situation. It probably means more FT8 operation (100 W) on some bands. Rest assured that we also will be active on CW and SSB.

Log correction hints ONLY to our QSL manager DL4SVA@darc.de please!
T2C.

T2C Tuvalu News 14 October 2023

News #7 (October 14, 2023)
After just under 3 days, all of the planned antennas were set up. Since everything was organized from Germany, we weren't sure if we could achieve this. Up to date information about the island is very scarce. The temperature is around 31°C and it is often cloudy with heavy squalls and rain showers throughout the day. Humidity is very high, which makes working on antennas strenuous.

Our air-conditioned bungalows are fine, but we don'thave much space for the antennas. Large construction machines had been in use all day long and cross the street in front of our bungalows. Therefore, we can only use the area adjacent to the bungalows so that we are not disturbing other guests. As the front part of the hotel area has been claimed from the sea, there is no beach(just rocks), which means we can’t install antennas there.

Our experienced team is in a good shape. We enjoy the excellent high band conditions to central Europe (> 15.000 km). This is only possible in the sunspot maximum. We are using simple but effective antennas and are very happy with 30.000 QSOs in 72 hours. All four stations are in operation 24/7 using a shift system. A fifth station is calling CQ on 50.313 kHz during daytime(FT8), at night we switch to 60 m.

Our two-element wire beam works very well from 20 to 10 m and produces large signals from the Europe until midnight on the high bands. The noise level is mostly S3-4, which is fine. However, sometimes we experience some type of broadband noise, which makes copying really difficult. Below 20 m we use isolated verticals with one elevated radial. On 160 m and 80 m the noise level is usually S9+, so we can only copy large stations on these bands. 60 m is a little better. Yesterday we installed a BOG-RX-antenna (Beverage on ground) atsome distance from the hotel. The BOG improved the receiving situation and we are currently installing a second one. Remember that our goal is to work especially on the high bands with maximum sunspot levels.

A CQ FT8 “beacon” runs at 6 m throughout the day. We have been working VK8AW and some JA’s. Our CQ call had also been heard in South America. We are still hoping for a great opening.

The performance is stable and we can run each band at around 500 watts. The people are very nice and streets are pretty crowded with motorcycles and cars. Sometimes it feels like rush hour in a big city. The hotel WiFi is not realiable. We therefore obtained a local SIM card, which provides access via a LTE. LTE internet access is stable but slow and expensive as the uplink is provided via satellite.

We get a lot of messages like “Is my QSO on 40 m in the log?” or “mistake in the call” via our general emailaddress. Please note, that we can’t answer this type ofemails individually. Our QSl manager has an own email. Please check our daily log update on Clublog and if in doubt, work us again. Information about band openings are always very welcomed.
T2C.

T2C Tuvalu News 12 October 2023

Approaching 20K QSOs, the T2C team have now erected the 80 and 160m verticals. Both are at 18m height and they will be QRV on these bands tonight
T2C.

T2C Tuvalu News 10 October 2023

T2C Tuvalu Island DX Pedtion start activity.

T2C Tuvalu News 1 October 2023

One more week until we leave – everything is prepared.
We are in contact with Dom T22T, who is currently staying at our planned QTH, the Funafuti Lagoon Hotel. There is a lot of unexpected traffic around the hotel as well as electrical and acoustic noise due to large land claim activities including heavy construction machinery and workers from overseas. Due to T22T's current experience with high noise and limited space due to the construction work, we will carefully check viable solutions and possible look for a second QTH (probably with only a part of the team and material). It is difficult and expensive as we have arranged everything at the Funafuti Lagoon Hotel for the entire period. Remember that our focus is on higher bands, including 6m.

Rest assured we will do our best. At this point a big THANK YOU to all of our donors!

On October 23rd the low band antennas for 160 & 80 m will be dismantled and on October 24th half of the team will fly back with half of the material. The rest of the team will operate three stations from 40 to 6 m until the end of the expedition.

Of course, there will be news and pictures on our homepage.
T22T.

T2C Tuvalu News 4 August 2023

Band CW SSB RTTY FT8

These are our new planned frequencies according to different regions' band plans and they are subject to change depending on the current band situation.
We will only operate one station per band at same time.
The MSHV program (up to 5 slots) is used for FT8 on the announced frequencies. We as DXP (fox) will not use the F/H mode and may also use the normal FT8 frequencies later.
All hunters can call us in normal mode with locator or report and stay on their frequency even for answering. Please do not call us on our transmission frequencies!
All FT8 stations are manned. This enables an optimal selection of callers, e. G. for weak stations. The QSO will be logged on our side once we send RR73 or 73.

We try to upload our log daily. If in doubt, please contact us again. No log corrections during the expedition.

We will work always split! Please avoid dupes!

T2C Tuvalu News 28 July 2023

News #3 (July 26, 2023)

Expedition to Funafuti, Tuvalu October 10-30, 2023

As most of you know, our team conducts every year a serious light weight DXpedition to rare to semi-rare DXCC entities. These are not vacation trips. We take proper technology – including a pentaplexer – as well as antennas with us and operate on all bands from 160 to 6 m (as far as possible) and use the most important and most popular operating modes CW, SSB, RTTY and FT8.

This year, the transport costs for our 12-man team amount to roughly €32,000. This includes four economy flights one-way, which means being on the road for more than 35 hours, plus additional baggage and excess length fees. The team members will start their journey on October 8th from different airports in Germany towards Tuvalu with stop-overs in London, Los Angeles and Fiji. In total, the team is transporting around 250 kg of well sorted radio equipment – with a luggage limit of 23kg per person plus a few kg of carry-on luggage.

The cost of accommodation and food amount to €20,000. On top of that, there will be other fees, costs for electricity, internet access for log uploads and homepage updates, separate radio room, gifts for guests, QSL cards, T-shirts as well as humanitarian support for the island. Almost the entire technology and antennas are provided privately by the members. Everyone in the team pays around €5,000 themselves.

On our homepage, we offer information about the team, the technology, and more importantly also about propagation, the Online QSL Request Service (OQRS), regular news updates and a way to contact us during the DXPedition. Important: This e-mail address is not intended for log corrections!

After two weeks on the island half of the team will fly back on October 24. The remaining six operators DL1KWK, DL4SVA, DL6KVA, DL7JOM, DL7VEE and DL8LAS will stay until October 30. In the last week, we will only be qrv on 40 m and higher. We will also participate in the CQ WW DX SSB contest.

T2C Tuvalu News 7 July 2023

Our return to the pacific is scheduled for fall 2023. With the help of Jared N7SMI and John KK7L, important details for Tuvalu - T2 could be clarified. It is really difficult to find perfect antenna opportunities on Funafuti Island.

As of July 2023 we have all permits in hand. Accommodation as well as flights for our planned destination in October 2023 are booked and confirmed. This means we are ready to announce a new serious and lightweight expedition to Tuvalu.

The team consists largely of members of the 2022 P29RO expedition, supplemented by new experienced OPs. We are all looking forward to October 10 to be on the air on with the call sign T2C until October 30. Members are Ronny DG2RON, Fred DH5FS, Olaf DJ7TO, Werner DJ9KH, Joe DK5WL, Frank DL1KWK, Georg DL4SVA, Christian DL6KAC, Axel DL6KVA, Olaf DL7JOM, Rolf DL7VEE and Andree DL8LAS. Some team members will leave a few days earlier.

It is planned to operate four stations with power amplifiers in CW, SSB, RTTY and FT8 from 160 to 6 m, including 60 m, 24 hours a day. We will use our private equipment. The focus lies – given the current state of the solar cycle – on the higher bands.

Any donations are welcome. News will be announced on our website.

73 Rolf, DL7VEE

T2C Tuvalu DX Pedition Logo.

Tuvalu: Endangered Islands

The Tuvalu Islands, located in the waters of the Pacific Ocean, are one of the few territories that are still a colony, while having the status of an independent state. The head of Tuvalu is a British monarch.

Funafuti, Tuvalu. Author - Michael Jeddah.

Endangered and Environmental Problems

All nine islands of the state, as well as the Maldives, are threatened with complete extinction. The highest point above sea level in the country reaches only 5 meters. The natural erosion processes of the coastline are intensified by seasons of tropical showers and storms. There have been only 4 hurricanes here, despite the islands being in a potentially dangerous area for their occurrence. This happened after the 70s of the last century.

One of the most destructive was Cyclone Bebe, which demolished almost all the buildings and felled 90% of the trees. To recover from the natural cataclysm, the country had to ask for funds from other countries.

In addition to natural phenomena, there are other problems on the islands. So, there is an acute problem with drinking water and land. The territories suitable for agriculture become less and less every year. They are actively polluted by household waste, salts and sewage. There are problems with garbage removal and disposal on the islands. Mountains of it accumulate and remain here.

Sewage has become one of the causes of water problems. The contamination of wells where water used to be extracted by them and ocean salts has forced the local population to get fresh liquid for drinking and cooking by collecting rainwater. They pour it into concrete cisterns and then use it for their needs.

Tuvalu. Author - Helena Jinx.

A unique reserve

There is a unique reserve on the territory of Tuvalu. It is located in a lagoon near Funafuti, the capital of the island state. Its area is 32 square kilometers. The reason for its establishment was the devastating impact on the underwater world of the rising waters of the world ocean.

Special, regular excursions for tourists to the park are not organized. To get into these waters, you need to specially rent a boat. The underwater world of the park is very interesting. There are many corals, fish, mollusks, as well as jellyfish and sea turtles.

In addition to the water areas, the park includes six islands of Tuvalu. In general, wildlife on the islands is scarce. Here tourists can meet a variety of terrestrial insects, lizards, cats, rats, dogs and pigs, as well as birds.

Vegetation is also not rich in species. Closer to the shoreline, there are various shrubs and groves of coconut palms. Bananas and bread trees grow here. Mangroves and ferns can be found in the interior of the islands.

National cuisine

Due to the sparse vegetation and small land area, coconut is the staple food of the Tuvalu Islands. Its pulp and milk are used in most dishes. It is also used by the islanders to make the traditional drink toddy.

All meat products are represented by different kinds of fish caught in the nearby waters. Here you can eat salmon, tuna, and flounder. The local people raise poultry and pigs for their needs.

Funafuti, Tuvalu. Author - Michael Jeddah.

A cemetery in every home

Tuvalu has a special cult of dead relatives. They are not buried according to the traditions of most countries in designated cemeteries. The deceased bodies are buried in the ground right in the yard of the house. Around the burial place they create special memorials, resembling houses. They are decorated with rags of bright colors or flowers. The more respected a relative was, the larger their afterlife home is built. If the owner and head of the family died, his improvised crypt may exceed the size and height of the structure in which he lived during his lifetime.

An enterprising government

Tuvalu is one of the poorest countries in the world. Because the country has few ways to strengthen its economy, due to its small territory and scarce mineral resources, revenues are drawn from everything. For example, the country receives more than 2 million dollars for the use by TV companies of the ".tv" domain, which originally belongs to the island state. This income accounts for a fifth of all revenues to the treasury.

Remittances home from islanders working as long-distance sailors are another important item of Tuvalu's income. They amount to 4 million dollars annually.

Tourism in the country is very poorly developed. The reason for this is the lack of quality service, expensive flights and poor transport links with other islands in the region, which survive at the expense of tourists. However, ecotourists are interested in this corner of the world and the preconditions for the development of this direction the country has.

T2C. Where is Tuvalu located. Map.