VP6TC To Be HamCom DX Luncheon Speaker The Lone Star DX Association is proud to announce that Tom Christian, VP6TC and leader of the upcoming March 2002 Ducie Island Dxpedition, will be the DX luncheon speaker at Ham-Com 2002 in Arlington, Texas, June 7-8. Christian, great-great-great-grandson of Fletcher Christian leader of the famous "Mutiny on the Bounty" in 1789, is known as the voice of Pitcairn as the island's most active ham radio operator. He is also president of the Pitcarin Island Amateur Radio Association (PIARA). Tom will also have color slides and video from the Ducie Island DXpedition scheduled for March 2002. With assistance from an ARRL Colvin Award, PIARA plans to conduct the DXpedition from Ducie--which became the newest ARRL DXCC entity as of November 16, 2001 and has not yet been activated, making it the most-wanted DXCC entity. Poor weather scuttled the initial attempt to land a DXpedition team on Ducie Island in November. Christian, VP6TC, has announced that a international DXpedition team now plans to depart by boat from Mangareva on March 12. Once on Ducie Island, the DXpedition will use a VP6 call sign to be announced at the start of the operation, which will include both SSB and CW and possibly RTTY on 160 through 6 meters. In addition to Christian, operators will include Kan Mizoguchi, VP6BK/JA1BK; Dave Brown, VP6DB; Mike McGirr, K9AJ; Vince Thompson, K5VT; Miralda Warren, VP6MW; Jin Fujiwara, JF1IST; and Mac Shimamoto, JA3USA. HF QSLs go to Garth Hamilton, VE3HO. Six-meter QSLs go to JA1BK. Log checks will be available on the "DX Cluster from Japan" Web site. More information is available on the VE3HO QSL Manager Web page, and on WD4NGB's DX Is Web site. Some 2,000 articles and books, 5 major motion pictures, and numerous shorter documentary films have looked into virtually every aspect of this mutiny led by Fletcher Christian against Captain William Bligh. It is undeniably one of the most famous sea stories of all time. There is much disagreement as to who was to blame for the incident, and the history remains, to this day, an interesting topic for maritime history and South Pacific historians. The people onboard the Bounty arrived on Pitcairn in late 1789 and Pitcairners celebrate the January 23 as the day in 1790 when the Bounty was burnt. The community at Pitcairn, wasn't located for 18 years until an American ship stopped at the island. . In 1808 an American sealing ship called Topaz (Captained by Mayhew Folger) found Pitcairn; and at that time only one of the original mutineers (John Adams) was still alive. It was during the time the Tahitians and Mutineers were on Pitcairn the Pitcairn/Norfolk (Pidgin English) language was developed. It continued to be developed other places they went. In the 1830's the Pitcairners were invited to Tahiti by the Queen of Tahiti. They went but once they arrived they realized that life there wasn't for them. They convinced an American captain, William Driver to return them back to Pitcairn. They sailed on his ship the Charles Doggett and arrived on Pitcairn on September 3 1831. Pitcairn today is one of the world's most isolated inhabited islands as ships call on the island only a few times a year. It has a resident population of about 60 persons. Registration and DX luncheon information will be available soon at the HamCom web page http://www.hamcom.org/ or Lone Star DX Association web page http://www.dxer.org/lsdxa Additional information on Christian and Pitcairn Island is available at: Pitcairn Island web page http://www.lareau.org/pitc.html (also includes Tom's normal on-air operating times and frequencies) http://www.janeresture.com/pitcairn/ (includes map of the island) In addition to the DX luncheon, the LSDXA is planning nearly two full days of DX programs, activities, and lots of door prizes at the luncheon and DX programs. 2001-2002 LSDXA Officers: Bill Priakos, W5SJ, president, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Herb Blair, K5AT, Information Director, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Bud Walton K5HW, treasurer, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Bob Alexander W5AH, activities director, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tom Anderson, WW5L, membership director, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems, etc DX-NEWS http://njdxa.org/dx-news DX-CHAT: http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX NEWS items only, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives http://www.mail-archive.com/dx-news%40pro-usa.net/
