VU7AG DX Lakshadweep Islands active!!!!!

A team of amateur radio operators are now active as VU7AG from Agatti Island (AS-011) until December 10th. 

Agatti is one of the islands of Lakshadweep group formerly known as the Laccadive, Minicoy, and Amindivi Islands is a group of islands in the Laccadive Sea, 200 to 440 kilometres (120 to 270 miles) off the south western coast of India. The archipelago is a Union Territory and is governed by the Union Government of India. They were also known as Laccadive Islands, although geographically this is only the name of the central subgroup of the group. Lakshadweep comes from "Lakshadweepa", which means "one hundred thousand islands" in Sanskrit as well as many Indian languages like Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and others. The islands form the smallest Union Territory of India: their total surface area is just 32 square kilometres (12 sq mi). The islands are the northernmost of the Lakshadweep-Maldives-Chagos group of islands, which are the tops of a vast undersea mountain range, the Chagos-Laccadive Ridge.

Agatti Island , also known as Agathy, is a 5.6 km long island, situated on a coral atoll in the Union Territory of Lakshadweep, India. It is located about 459 km (285 mi) off Kochi in the mainland and 7 km to the southwest ofBangaram, the nearest island. Kavaratti, the closest inhabited island, lies 54 km to the SE and the uninhabited Suheli Par atoll 76 km to the south. Agatti's total land area is approximately 2.7 km² (1 sq mi). The small island of Kalpitti is located at the southern end on the same reef.

Activity will be on 160-10 meters using CW, SSB and RTTY. The updated suggested frequencies are:

CW - 1812, 3512, 7012, 10112, 14012, 18082, 21012, 24902 and 28012 kHz
SSB - 3680, 7095, 14180, 18155, 21280, 24955 and 28480 kHz
RTTY - 3584, 7032, 10142, 14082, 18092, 21092, 24922 and 28092 kHz

They will always be operating split. 

Please listen to operator instructions carefully.
CW: 2-10 KHz up SSB: 5-15 KHz up RTTY: 2-10 KHz up

The pilot stations have been announced: Stan/KH6CG (Chief Pilot
+ Asia/OC), Gary/DF2RG (EU), Luc/LU1FAM (Central & South America), Mark/N1UK (NA East Coast) and Rich/KY6R (NA West Coast). They also have an ePilot on their Web site through which DXers can get in touch with them.

The Propagation page now includes custom propagation charts thanks to Stu, K6TU, and his wonderful propagation service.

Another callsign has been issued for demonstration purposes on Kavaratti Island ­ VU7KA. This would be used only briefly when team members make presentations to the local administration in Kavaratti and educate them on amateur radio.

QSL Manager is Krish, W4VKU, direct or by the Bureau (see details on the Web page). An Online QSL Request System (OQRS) will be available for all your QSL requests. OQRS will be enabled soon after the expedition. For Logbook of The World (LoTW): QSOs would be uploaded
to LoTW in approximately 6 months time.

The following Web page has been set up and contains bios of operators, QSL details, frequencies and a survey. 

Visit the VU7AG page at: http://www.vu7ag.info