Editor’s Note: Every month, DX Engineering features QSL cards from our team members’ personal collections. To highlight upcoming DXpeditions, we’ll be displaying a few of our favorite cards along with details about what it took to make these contacts. We’re excited to share some of the special cards pulled from the thousands we’ve received over the years. We look forward to seeing your cards as well!
Gabon QRV in June and July
For this month’s QSL card post, we’ll be highlighting an ongoing DXpedition in Gabon and featuring cards from a rarer DXCC entity (#48) that was active in May—Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Operators hoping to make Gabon (officially the Gabonese Republic) an All-Time-New-One or fill CW bands will have an excellent opportunity thanks to the TR8CR DXpedition by F8EN, which is scheduled to be active from now until July 31 on 40, 30, and 20M CW. Located on the equator and known for its extensive rainforests, this primarily French-speaking country on the west coast of Central Africa ranked as the 192nd Most-Wanted DXCC Entity as of May.
About Gabon
Gabon has a population of 2.1 million, ranking it 44th among African countries. With a square mileage of 100,000, it sits near the bottom of the list of African countries based on population density (50th out of 54). More than 89% of Gabon is forested. Visitors can be treated to an array of wildlife, including gorillas, forest elephants, a variety of monkeys, leopards, buffalo, marine turtles, and sitatungas (a medium-size, swamp-dwelling antelope). Much-celebrated Gabonese masks made from rare native wood and precious metals play a strong role in the culture, appearing at births, weddings, funerals, and other ceremonies. Gabon is home to the world’s only known fossil natural nuclear reactor (a uranium deposit where self-sustaining nuclear chain reactions have occurred). The Oklo reactor zones were discovered during uranium mining in the 1970s. Scientists estimate that chain reactions occurred 1.7 billion years ago and continued for hundreds of thousands of years.
About Andaman and Nicobar Islands
This union territory of India, consisting of 572 islands from two groups (Andaman and Nicobar), is located at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, which separates it from Thailand and Myanmar. The territory’s capital city of Port Blair (population 140,500, 3,185 square miles) is located on South Andaman Island—one of Andaman’s main islands along with North Andaman and Middle Andaman, collectively recognized as Great Andaman. The Nicobar Islands are divided into three groups: Northern, Central, and Southern. The Southern Group includes 356-square-mile Great Nicobar (population 8,060), the largest of Nicobar’s islands. Most of Great Nicobar is a biosphere reserve due its varied endemic wildlife, including giant robber crabs (also known as coconut crabs), saltwater crocodiles, Nicobar tree shrews, and reticulated pythons. The coconut crab is the world’s largest terrestrial arthropod, weighing up to nine pounds and reaching lengths of more than three feet—not something you’re likely to see on your plate at Red Lobster.
On December 26, 2004, a 33-foot-high tsunami, resulting from an earthquake in the Indian Ocean, struck the coast of Andaman and Nicobar, killing 2,000, injuring 46,000, and submerging parts of the territory in the ocean.
The territory’s population of around 380,500 (37 of the islands are inhabited) includes the Sentinelese, an indigenous—and “uncontacted”—people who live on North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal. Among the native peoples of Andaman and Nicobar (the Great Andamanese, Jarawas, Onge, Shompen, and Nicobarese), the Sentinelese have remained steadfastly isolated from lands beyond their island and are hostile to intrusion by ethnic outsiders. In 1956, the Indian government established 23-square-mile North Sentinel Island as a tribal reserve. Travel is forbidden within three nautical miles of the island, photography is prohibited, and an armed patrol stands watch at all times to ensure that their isolation is not breached (illegal fishermen and a missionary have been reported killed, and 50 Sentinelese unsuccessfully attempted to invade a cargo ship that ran aground in 1981). Population estimates range from 15 to 500, and virtually nothing is known about their language.
QSL Cards
The active hams at DX Engineering have had great success contacting Gabon and Andaman/Nicobar over the years (a good reason to contact them for help with your gear if you’d like to do the same). Here are a few of the QSL cards they pulled from their collections.
Scotty, KG9Z, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, made contact with VUAPR (Andaman)/VU4NRO (Nicobar), as well as TR8JLD from Libreville—Gabon’s capital and largest city (25 square miles, population of 704,000).
George, K3GP, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, produced a nice selection from his years of DXing: From Andaman and Nicobar Islands, VU4AN (April 2006, 20M SSB); VU4PB (March 2011, 17M CW); and VU3RYE (April 2006, 20M CW). From Gabon, TR0A (February 2006, 20M SSB); and Alain, TR8CA of the Association Gabonaise des Radio-Amateurs, the national IARU member society for Gabon (April 2005, 20M RTTY and January 2008, 20M SSB).
Tom, KB8UUZ, DX Engineering technical writer, contacted the Andaman and Nicobar Islands VU4KV DXpedition from Neill Island and TR8CA in Gabon (see card front above). Neill Island (population 3,040), originally named after the British brigadier general James Neill, was renamed Shaheed Dweep in 2018, honoring Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, who hoisted the Indian flag at Port Blair on December 30, 1943, declaring the Andaman/Nicobar territory free from British rule.
David, K8DV, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, reached VU4AN in April 2006 on 20M SSB and TR8CA (see card above) in October 2008 (17M RTTY), January 2016 (12M CW), and November 2021 (10M SSB).
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