Welcome to the fourth edition "The Insider" a regular publication for supporters and partners of the Chesterfield Islands, 2015 DX-pedition TX3X.
We will share with you an inside view of our planning processes and how we reached major decisions. We believe it is important that the community have more visibility to the significant work that takes place long before RF flies. We hope you enjoy this publication.
We hope you had a happy and healthy holiday season. We've been busy preparing for the kick-off of our planning sessions.
DX-pedition of the Year Selection
The Mellish Reef VK9MT team is honored to have been selected as one to the top 5 DX-peditions of 2014. To be included with the slate of outstanding teams and individuals was a big surprise.
Joining the team:
On-Island
Tom Berson ND2T
Tom is well known contest enthusiast and DXpeditioner. He was licensed at age 11 as WV2ASJ. He is a member of the Northern California Contest Club (President 2003-2004), the Stanford Amateur Radio Club, and CWops. Tom is President of the Northern California DX Foundation. He operates contest multi-ops from W6YX, K6IDX (W6OAT), and K5RC (W7RN). A member of DXpeditions to Scarborough Reef (BS7H, 2007), Midway Island (K4M, 2009), South Orkney Islands (VP8ORK, 2011), and Swains Island (NH8S, 2012).
Pilot Team
Alexander (Al) Teimurazov 4L5A Asia pilot (except JA)
Additionally, Al is the publisher of the website DXnews.com and was our first committed corporate sponsor.
Luke Steele VK3HJ OC
Luciano Sampaio de Souza PT7WA SA
Project Planning Sessions
Detailed planning sessions have begun. Team member assignments are being made and most importantly, fund raising, under the leadership of Ross Forbes K6GFJ has begun. Our social media expert Glenn Petri KE4KY implemented our Facebook and Twitter sites, accessible from chesterfield2015.pdxg.net or directly on FB / Twitter
Corporate Sponsorship and Fund Raising
We are seeking corporate sponsorship from many familiar friends, including Elecraft, Spiderbeam, DX-Engineering and Foldingantenna.com. Our fund raising team will begin contacting over 100 DX clubs and Foundations, worldwide, seeking support for the project. This process generally takes several months, as funding commitments are received we'll update the website support pages.
New Zealand Logistics
A major task will be to consolidate equipment in the USA and Europe and ship to New Zealand. We made arrangements with an Auckland, NZ firm to receive our shipments and place them in secure storage. Additionally, the firm will provide local help and a truck to transport equipment to and from the boat. At the conclusion of the project equipment will be consolidated at the firm and repacked for shipment to the USA and Europe. There will be no charge to the project for the firm's local services and transportation.
Log Search / OQRS Application
Our programmer cleaned up some remaining bugs, is adding new functions and doing performance tuning. Once the work is completed we'll load the VK9MT logs and open testing to interested parties.
ClubLog: We will not use ClubLog and by popular demand there will be no Leaderboard on our website.
Uploads to our Log Search / OQRS Application will be accessible from chesterfield2015.pdxg.net
We'll use an Inmarsat BGAN data set, which the computer sees as a DSL modem, to upload logs from the island. We also have the capability to make and receive voice calls, e-mail and text messages. On-island e-mail addresses and telephone numbers will not be publicized.
73,
Chesterfield 2015 DX-pedition Team