The Radio Club Venezolano (RCV) is celebrating the 70th anniversary and 181 anniversary of Navy Battle of Lago de Maracaibo and Venezuela Navy Day would hereby announce an Dxpedition to Aves Island - one of the top ten most wanted DXCC entities.

Aves Island (NA-020) is located at 15 40' 33" North 63 36' 27" West (FK85eq) which is around 600 kilometers north of Venezuela mainland, the island is about 580 meters long and 150 meters wide, the highest point on the island is only about 3 meters above sea level, Aves Island was claimed by Venezuela in 1865, on August 23, 1972 the island was declared a wildlife sanctuary, in 1978 the Venezuelan Navy established a garrison in Aves called the Simon Bolivar Scientific-Military Base. Now a new garrison has been installed this month and this expedition will be there at the time of its inauguration, last DXpedition to YV0 was in 1994.

Dates:  From July 28th until August 8th. (on-the-air period depends on voyage to Aves)

Guest Operators: K6MYC, OH2BH, OH0XX .

Local Operators: YV1DIG, YV4BOU, YV5AMH, YV5IVB, YV5JBI, YV5KXE, YV5OIE, YV6BTF.

Also YY5FRD will be part of the crew.

Antennas: Sigma & SVDA vertical monoband antennas for HF provided by FORCE 12 the leading edge antennas for many successful DXpeditions and contest operations. On VHF M2 2x 41 ft. boomers on 6m and a 15.7 dbd yagui for 2m will be used. Crossed yaguis for UHF and VHF will be used in satellite operation.

Modes: SSB, CW, RTTY, PSK, SSTV, FM and some other digital modes, many for the first time from yv0.

Bands: 75cms thru 160m including WARCs and satellite, EME (Moon bounce operation is for the first time from YV0).

Rigs: 4x Yaesu's FT1000MP Mark-V and 2x FT847's, 2x FinnFet HF amplifiers by MA-FET among others rigs and amplifiers, also a 1Kw (8877) on 6m and 350W on 2m (EME).

Pilot Hams for the Operation:
-Asia and Oceania: ZL2AL.
-America: K6GNX.
-Europe: OH2RF.

Operation Profile: 6 HF stations plus a 6m/2m EME and a satellite station for (AO7, FO29, SO50, AO51, etc).

Trip to the island is expected to be a 24 hours or less depending on the ship, The set-up period after arrival will be some hours in the Caribbean heat, such as antennas and tents, in a high heat would take its tool. And thereafter... be our guest!

The main antennas will be taken down a day before the ship arrival while a modest signal maybe kept on the air until 8th of August.

At the hour (00 minutes) operators will ask for only AF/AS/OC, be polite and stop calling if you are not in this areas, just wait until the next general QRZ.

At half hours (30 minutes) operators will ask for short skip stations only, it means Caribbean and North/Central/South America, again please follow the previous lines instructions.

If the Ship Commander would allow radio operations on the ship keep your ears on 6m for some Caribbean sea grids.

As you have noticed there are real good operators in the crew, so just follow their instructions,

Any extra sent as contribution will be gratefully welcome to cover the expenses of the DXpedition and printing the QSL cards.

Any information send Email to: yv5aj-rcv@cantv.net