Dayton Hamvention® is officially over for 2026 (cue Debbie Downer sad trombone sound). The good news is that you probably brought back the kind of equipment you’ll need to capture more DXCC entities in pursuit of working the world. The team at DX Engineering and OnAllBands was thrilled to talk with many of you in Xenia, Ohio, and catch up with operators who have recently put some of the rare ones on the air.
Hope you went home with plenty of eyeball QSOs, some pileup-busting station upgrades, and the good feeling that the world’s best hobby is alive and thriving.
Now let’s talk DXpeditions! Here is a duo of activations to mark on your calendar for the remainder of May 2026:
Rodrigues Island
The 3B9G activation of Rodrigues Island by VU3OPT is scheduled to run until May 22 on 20/15/10M in CW.
Named after the Portuguese explorer Diogo Rodrigues in 1528, Rodrigues (IOTA AF-017) is part of the Mascarene Islands, located in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar. Once a district of Mauritius, the island was granted autonomous status in December 2002. The 42-square-mile volcanic island has a population of around 41,000 and an economy based mainly on tourism, fishing, agriculture, animal rearing, and handicrafts.
Rodrigues is surrounded by coral reef and a few small uninhabited islands. This leads us to the OnAllBands Geography Question of the Day: Can you name the world’s largest coral reef system? For bonus points, what is the world’s second largest coral reef system? Answers below.
Here are a couple Rodrigues Island QSL cards earned by the active DXers at DX Engineering:
Tom, KB8UUZ, DX Engineering technical writer, received this QSL card from the hugely successful March/April 2004 Project Star Reach 3B9C DXpedition, which boasted 32 operators and more than 153,000 CW, SSB, and Digital QSOs logged.
David, K8DV, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, received this card from the 3B9WR March 2010 DXpedition, which he contacted on 80/40M CW.
Bonaire
The PJ4CB DXpedition by WA7RAR from various Bonaire locations, including POTA spots, is scheduled for May 27-June 8. You can try to reach PJ4CB on 20-10M in SSB and CW.
Bonaire (IOTA SA-006), a Dutch island in the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean Sea, is situated 50 miles off the coast of Venezuela. It is one of three islands in the ABC Islands group—so named because of the first letters of their names. (The other two are Aruba and Curacao.)
Tom, KB8UUZ, provided us with this March 2012 card from PJ4Z. According to hopibonaire.com, Bonaire’s warm climate makes the island exceptionally suited for lizards, like the green iguana on the QSL card below. Per the website, this largest lizard of Bonaire can grow up to six feet long.
Watch the lizards of Bonaire in action in the video below:
Wayne, K8FF, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, worked PJ4D (20M SSB) and PJ4I (30M CW) both on October 10, 2010—the day the Netherland Antilles was dissolved as a nation. Both DXpeditions highlighted the birth of Bonaire as a new DXCC entity.
“I’ll Take Massive Coral Reef Systems for $1,000, Ken.”
You didn’t have to be a geography bee champion to know that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system. It extends 1,429 miles off the coast of Queensland and is the largest living structure on Earth. Coming in a distant second place is the nearly 700-mile Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, or Great Mayan Reef, which runs along the coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras in the Caribbean Sea.
Want to upgrade your DXing capabilities? Find everything you need at DX Engineering, including transceivers, amplifiers, antennas, headsets, and more.
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!
The post It’s All in the Cards—DXCC Entities on the Air in May 2026! appeared first on OnAllBands.