Association des Radio Amateurs de Nouvelle Caledonie (ARANC), the amateur radio society of New Caledonia, is pleased to report that the Chesterfield Islands DXpedition remains on target and the departure date for the expedition vessel has now been set for Monday, 13 March.

The New Caledonian telecommunication authorities have issued another call sign for the IOTA phase of the operation. The call sign TX8CI (Chesterfield Islands) will be used initially, while the distinctive TXØDX call will become effective at 0000 UTC, 23 March, assuming the needed parameters of the new DXCC entity requirement have been positively acted upon prior to that target date.

It is expected that our chief pilot Bill, K6GNX will be in contact with the International Amateur Radio Union to obtain the outcome of ARANC's membership application. Bill will communicate the outcome with no delay to all DX outlets. But DXers around the world can simply look forward to the appearance of the TXØDX call sign on the air as a clear indication that another addition to the DXCC list is in the making. K6GNX's e-mail address will also be made public by 12 March, so individual DXers' questions can be processed.

The weekend of 25-26 March is rather important to the success of TXØDX. Since it is also the weekend of the all-band WPX SSB contest, some specific measures will be implemented during this 48-hour period. For the most part, TXØDX will be have two CW and two SSB stations on the air throughout the weekend. One station will be dedicated to 15-meter SSB, transmitting on 21.445 MHz, while tuning in the range above 21.400 MHz. The other SSB station will be dedicated to 12 and 17 meters during the WPX weekend. The standard operating frequencies can be found on the TXØDX web site (http://www.n4gn.com/tx0dx/).