Ducie Island is situated about 472 km East of Pitcairn, a little bit South of the tropic of Cancer. The island is only 6.4 sqkm large, there is practically no drinking water and very sparse vegetation can be found at a few places only. It is very difficult to get onto the island so only very few people are visiting it. But Ducie Island is a hotbed for thousands of seabirds.

The birth of the new Princess Elisabeth was reason for the Belgian licensing authority to allow the Belgian radio amateurs using the prefix OQ until Dec 31, 2001.     <DX-NL 1267 October 31, 2001>

 VP6 OPERATIONS    The VP6DI team went QRT on March 26th 2002 around 1530z. It was announced that they made about 52,000 QSOs. The team travelled to Henderson Island for the IOTA enthusiasts and stayed about two days. The operators used their own VP6 callsign on Henderson. The last report, they made over 2000 QSOs. The IOTA designations for Ducie is OC-182 and Henderson is OC-056. Per a press release, "logs will not appear on the web site until a later date. Please don't panic." Also a reminder that Ducie QSL cards are via VE3HO (JA1BK for six meters). They added that the QSL cards will not be available at Dayton. <OPDX 556 April 1, 2002>

VP6, DUCIE ISLAND   The Ducie Island DXpedition team is now active as VP6DI for about one week. First reports started showing up on the DX Clusters about 1915z Saturday. Remember the main frequencies for this operation are 21020 kHz for CW and 21295 kHz for SSB twenty-four hours a day. Note, please, that the expedition will have both 15 meter frequencies active at the same time. Other suggested frequencies are 14195 kHz for SSB and 14020 kHz for CW, as well as 28495 kHz for SSB. If conditions on the higher bands are poor, they will use 7045 kHz for SSB and 7005 kHz for CW. The operators will not be active on 75/80/160 meters and on the WARC until the last part of the operation. A frequency for CW on the WARC bands will be announced later. Per Yoshi, JE2EHP, states there will be 5 stations (Stations A, B, C, D and E). Stations A and B will share one tent and stations C, D and E will each have their own tents. The team will try to set up the A and B tent about 500 meters from the other tents. This arrangement is not carved in stone; there may be changes depending on the situation.

Station A - 50 MHz, KW to a 4 element Yagi 14 MHz, 500W or a KW to a Four Square 7 and/or 3.5 MHz, 500W or a KW to an Inverted V
Station B - 21 MHz SSB, KW to a 2 element phased array beam
Station C - 21 MHz CW, KW to a 2 element phased array beam
Station D - 28 MHz CW, (100W) to a 2 element phased array beam
Station E - 18/24 MHz (100W) to a Vertical

The Pilot Stations Yoshi/JE2EHP, Stu/WA2MOE and Jay/AF2C release the following statements on Friday about the VP6DI operation:

1. They decided that they will basically use 40m Inverted V for 40m and 75m.
2. They will try to utilize the 80/160m vertical which the VP8 team has left in the vessel Braveheart for Ducie team.
3. They are asking all the stations on SSB to call with a full callsign, NOT BY LAST TWO LETTERS.
4. They will stay on Ducie at least until next weekend (March 23/24th) by local time.
5. They will stop over at Hendersen Island for IOTA service just for one day on their way back to Pitcairn.

QSL Manager is Garth Hamilton, VE3HO, for all HF operations only. QSL Manager for 6 meter operation is JA1BK.
For the latest updates on this operation, it is recommend to watch the following Web sites: http://www.qsl.net/aa0mz/ducie.htm
http://www.qsl.net/wd4ngb/ducie.htm
http://www.ve3ho.com/ve3ho-qslmgr.htm