We had two focuses on our announced January/February 2012 South Pacific DX Tour: T2 and T30 with possible operation from T33. We are regret to advice that we had to cancel the operation from T2 and T30. That was the bad news.
The good one is that our new target is C2, Nauru.
The reasons of these very last minute changes, which are out of our control, are as follows:
- We had to cancel the T30 as the flights from Fiji to Tarawa are suspended since 12 September 2011, due to the air traffic dispute between Kiribati and Fiji. There is high risk to extend the flight disruption for even longer period. After the consultation with the airlines and our consulate in Canberra, we were advised that "there is high risk of not to get to Tarawa or can not leave Tarawa for a long, undefined period of time. This situation does not affect the flights to Tuvalu and Nauru."
We were waiting until the very last minute hoping that the air traffic dispute between Fiji-Tarawa-Fiji will be solved, but the flights has not been restarted, yet. - Tuvalu government declared a nation-wide state of emergency on 28 September 2011 due to critical shortage of drinking water. The state of emergency was declared after existing desalination plants broke, exacerbating an already dire situation. The water crisis is still serious on two of the worse affected islands, the capital island of Funafuti and Nukulaelae. The airlines till do not accept excess baggage at all, including hand luggages, because of the loads of drinking water containers by Red Cross. We could check in less than the third of our technical stuff, resulting significant and unreasonable limitation of the station set up. Due to this restriction we decided to cancel the T2HA Tuvalu operation, as well.
- Due to the above detailed situation, we decided to change the target our DX pedition to C2, Nauru. Operation is planned between 10 January and 6 February 2012 as C21HA with two stations on all HF bands.
It was the first time that we asked support and received contribution from DX Foundations, DX Organizations and individuals. We appreciate these supports very much. However we will contact all organizations and individuals who supported us, and will pay the donations back if these changes would make them disappointed, despite Nauru is much better ranked on the most wanted DXCC list.
