A trip to The Gambia in February by students and staffers of Sandringham School in the UK will include a short DXpedition. The call sign C5DX again has been granted and will be on the air February 9-16. A party of 18 sixth-form students and three staff members from Sandringham School will visit their partner school, Farafenni Senior Secondary High. The two schools have worked in partnership for 10 years, and Farafenni High is now one of the highest-achieving rural schools in The Gambia. This will mark a return visit to The Gambia by Sangringham School. A contingent from Sandringham traveled to Farafenni High last February to open a new school hall there and to activate C5DX.

Head Teacher Alan Gray, G4DJX, will lead the DXpedition aspect to the trip. He will primarily operate CW, while four licensed students from the Sandringham School Amateur Radio Club (M0SCY) will operate SSB. They include Jessica, M6LPJ; Polly, M6POG; Morgan, M6MXD, and Stan, M6SQO. This will be their first DXpedition, and the youngsters will be learning how to operate from a semi-rare DXCC entity (it’s #198 on Club Log’s DXCC Most-Wanted List) and learn the craft of DX operating. Gray said he may try some LF-band operating from The Gambia.

The group will take along an Elecraft K3/KPA500/ KAT500 combination to run 400 W into a multiband dipole.

C5DX will operate split (up 1 kHz for CW, up 5 kHz for SSB) and will attempt to upload their logs to LoTW and Club Log while they are in The Gambia. They also hope to update their QRZ page during the DXpedition.

Sandringham School Amateur Radio Club now has 17 Amateur Radio licensees on its membership rolls, with more waiting to take either Foundation or Intermediate exams.

Part of the visit is to survey the progress of a major extension to the Farafenni High School library, made possible through fundraising at Sandringham School. — Thanks to Southgate Amateur Radio News