DXA | Our goal – DX-Adventure

DX-Adventure | It all started with the idea “let’s do something together”

For many years I have been in regular contact with ON4ANN Erik. We often talked about DX-peditions that we each experienced in our own way in the past. Sooner or later we would get together and organize something together.

During our conversations we both noticed that we regularly got the same remarks from other radio amateurs. People who clearly told us they would like to go on a DX-pedition too, but never got the chance to join. Others told us they would like to organize a DX-pedition themselves but have no idea how to start. Others told us they didn’t get the chance because they didn’t belong to the right section or club. Something we both personally found a pity, since we are all engaged in the same hobby.

During the Covid-19 situation, we had just a little more free time and had regular video meetings. We felt it was high time to work on something new. A project that would be permanent, a project where people can participate and collaborate without having to be members of some club or section. Something that we all build together and a project where in the future other ideas should be open for discussion, in short something that we work on together, without owing anyone anything.

Our plans became more and more concrete, and we went looking for a nice name, not really an easy task, because we wanted to link this to the same domain name. Eventually the curtain fell and it became “DX-Adventure”.

During our video meetings we brainstormed about the logo and an own DX-Adventure website. Our “to do list” was very long, but we were in no hurry since the world was almost at a standstill because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

We both noticed that this strange situation made us long for a new DX-pedition. We immediately agreed “let’s get on with it”. One day later I sent Erik an email asking him what he thought about Svalbard. A little later the phone rang, Erik liked the idea and so the plans for our first DX-pedition together came into being.

We had to figure out a lot of things: How do we get to our destination, what are the expenses for the extra luggage, find places to stay, radio amateur license in order and can we get a special callsign, etc, etc. With great passion we began this task. Erik quickly made the comment that I was not doing this at 100%, but at 200% commitment. In the evening he had a proposal, in the middle of the night the complete proposal was in his mailbox. My apologies Erik, apparently I was in “overdrive mode” for a while ,o)

After many hours of research, we had concrete plans, an idea of the costs and we could start looking for operators. Personally we asked ourselves if we could find five people who wanted to travel with us to the cold north. We sent the proposal with invitation on a late Sunday afternoon to some radio amateurs who had already shown their interest in the past. In just a few hours we received 8 positive responses from people who immediately confirmed that they wanted to go along. We had not totally expected this enthusiasm; some of them were very happy with the goal and proposal of DX-Adventure. The next day we had 11 registrations. To our great surprise people kept showing interest and we had to stop at 15 people. To our great regret, we also had to disappoint people. We searched in vain for extra places to stay, but we could only conclude that this was not feasible | affordable.

We are aware that we have a great team for our first DX-Adventure DX-pedition and are looking forward to it immensely.