Video - A35EU - Tonga

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Video announcement A35EU Tongatapu Island, IOTA OC - 049, Tonga.

More information on:
A35EU Tongatapu Island, Tonga

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A35EU Tonga DX Pedition Clipperton DX Club Story




How did this adventure start?
During a few beers during the Hamfest in Friedrichshafen we were talking about our next destination.
We mentioned a few destinations in the Pacific. Personally, I don’t like to go twice to the same country. A few destinations were out of our scope because of the cost and the difficulty to go to this DXCC country.
Frank DL4KQ mentioned Myanmar and everybody thought that was a great idea.
From July to half September we have been working on this destination, Frank did most of the work because he had some contacts in Myanmar. He also flew to Myanmar for some arrangements with the local government.
Everything seems fine, but after 1 month back home, we still didn’t receive the official papers.
We wanted to go to Myanmar in October, so only a few weeks left to organize this trip.
We started to look for a backup plan.
At the Hamfest we talked about Tonga as one of the destinations.
This is an easy place to activate, a lot of tourists go there, daily flights and a license is also no problem.
Tonga is not so high on the most wanted list, but for Europe still interesting.
Within 2 weeks nearly everything (license, location, flights) was organized.
So, we were ready for the following step.
End September we decided to postpone Myanmar and focus on Tonga.
Only 3 operators Tom GM4FDM, Martin PA4WM and Ronald PA3EWP wanted to go to Tonga.
We needed a fourth operator, soon this place was filled by Pat EI5IX.
The team was ready to go for a new adventure.

The Kingdom of Tonga

Tonga, is a Polynesian country and archipelago comprising 169 islands, of which 36 are inhabited.
The total surface area is about 750 square kilometers (290 sq. miles) scattered over 700,000 square kilometers of the southern Pacific Ocean.
The sovereign state has a population of approx. 100,000 people of whom 70% reside on the main island of Tongatapu.
The Tongan people first encountered Europeans in 1616 when the Dutch vessel Eendracht, captained by Willem Schouten, made a short visit to trade.
Later came other Dutch explorers, including Jacob Le Maire (who called on the northern island of Niuatoputapu); and in 1643 Abel Tasman (who visited Tongatapu and Haʻapai). Later noteworthy European visitors included James Cook (Royal Navy) in 1773, 1774, and 1777.
Tonga became independent in 1970 but is still a part of the commonwealth of nations.

Location on the Island

We found a nice location on the western part of the main Island. A previous Scottish DXpedition used
this QTH also, they gave us a lot of useful information. It was possible to setup the antennas the
border of the beach. On the beach itself was impossible because it was used also by other visitors.
The beach resort Heilala at Kanokupolu is located at the Ha’atafu beach. Because of the low season
we got card blanche to setup our antennas, we had only to take care of not disturbing the few other
guests.
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