DXpeditions Gone Political?

First, I want to point out a couple of things. #1, I am a DXer and my goal is to make a single contact with all entities, making additional contacts is a bonus, but not one I have ever had as a goal (all of my ham buddies know this to be true). #2, concerning the two entities specifically mentioned below, I have confirmed contacts with both. I was not denied a confirmation. In other words, this observation HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME. This blog entry is about my observation concerning the contacts made and how the DXpeditions should operate. I know I am not going to make any new friends with this post, so your opinion of this doesn’t matter in the least. What I have written is PURE LOGIC and has nothing to do with what-ifs and maybes.

One caveat, if a DXpedition knowingly operates with a bias toward a particular area, just state such in your documentation of your DXpedition, don’t try to hide it or gloss over it. Make it known that you are concentrating your efforts toward a particular area. Doing otherwise is a scam and it’s unethical.

The number of licensed amateur radio operators per-country, per QSL.net

QSL.net licensed amateurs by the numbers – https://www.qsl.net/4x4xm/Demographics/How-Many-Radio-Amateurs.htm

Numbers don’t lie. Both of the most recent DXpeditions, Bouvet and Sable Islands, should have been dominated by stations in NA. Bouvet was not and Sable is turning the same way. For Bouvet, both Europe and Asia dominated the numbers. For Sable, Europe is dominating. See the charts below.

I have watched Sable Island operators make 100% European contacts for an hour at a time on the upper bands (10-30m), without a single NA contact being made. If I am missing a few, those few won’t skew the results in the other direction. During this same time frame, I checked PSKreporter for my own propagation, noting that I am hitting various stations all around the Sable Island DXpedition. I did in fact work Sable, thus far on 6 bands (100w and a wire). That’s not my point. I am not making this argument because I didn’t make a contact, I am making this argument because, once again, the numbers don’t lie.

If politics are at play, my suggestion would be, in the future, put your donation money toward DXpeditions where the operators have allegiance to NA stations. This goes for vendors of amateur radio as well. If you’re a vendor and a high percentage of your business comes from NA amateur radio operators, it would be in your best interests to support that high percentage of customers.

Based on the number of licensed amateur radio operators world-wide (see the chart below), properly balanced DXpeditions should ultimately break down to something like this (estimate):

DXpedition teams can use any number of arguments to justify the areas they’re having QSOs with, the bottom line however, is a different story. For every excuse, another question can be asked “why did it go that way.” or “why didn’t you choose a different location for antennas”, etc. etc.

Bouvet Island (3Y0K) 2026 Statistics Per ClubLog – https://clublog.org/charts/?c=3Y0K#r

Sable Island (CY0S) 2026 (currently ongoing, will update when finalized)

Sable Island (CY0S) 2026 Statistics, per ClubLog – https://clublog.org/charts/?c=CY0S#r