In two weeks time we should be in French Polynesia on the island of Tahiti, ready to depart for Raivavae on the 30th October. I was listening earlier to TX5D running a nice pileup on 15 m CW – Grant and Rob have been on Raivavae for around ten days, and according to ClubLog have made over 15k QSOs at the moment.
This year has seen three operations from the Austral Islands so far. Yoshi, FO/KH0PR, was active from Raivavae (OC-114) in May, then UT6UD operated from Rurutu (OC-050) in July. The current TX5D effort from Raivavae has been putting decent signals into New Jersey for the last week. Hopefully Don, VE7DS and myself will make several thousand more QSOs from Raivavae at the beginning of November. Why this sudden rush of operations to FO/A (there has been little other activity since 2009)? Probably because the lack of DXpeditions to FO/A has meant that the islands have climbed rapidly up the most-wanted lists – currently FO/A is at 42 on ClubLog’s most wanted list, two places above ZL9 and one spot above VP8O!
We will be looking at the distribution of bands and locations where TX5D made their QSOs and see if we need to revise our plans – originally we had thought to spend a lot of time on 10 and 12 m, but from emails we’ve been receiving it seems there’s plenty of demand for 80 m, too.
K3EL 
Thanks guys for the update.
We had Yoshi on cw only, a very lot of TX5D is on cw and you have said that you operation will be more cw than 5D’s operation.
As an avid IOTA hunter who is a little pistol with only a small station, I would ask if it’s possible to try using phone more on your operation so us little pistols might get a new one. We all know that many big guns will try to work you on as many bands as possible even though they have worked the other two operations just to show everyone that they can.
My score on IOTA is over 1000 all worked on phone only with a tri band at about 35 feet.
I know it is your operation and your decision to work cw but please remember those who can’t like me who have arthritis and are unable to use a key and think using a computer to run cw is cheating.
This is only my opinion but would love to work OC114 for an all time new one.
Best wishes and have a safe trip. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
73’s Phil G4WFZ
As above, please don’t leave your microphones at home, TX5D didn’t even make a dent in NW EU ssb demand due to them consistantly going QRT just prior to the brief window of opportunity.
Good luck whatever you decide.
73
Paul