The first big DXPedition by the young generation of Hams

It was announced several months ago that the international group of young amateurs is planning the major DXPedition. This could have been a unique event since in the minds of the ham radio community, “Major DXPedition” is usually associated with the group of rich old-timers renting ships for hundreds of thousands of dollars while asking for more and more donations.
Will we see the DXPedition to some remote island for more than $1.000.000? Only time will tell….
One exception proves the rule – “The Rebel DX Group” https://www.facebook.com/rebeldxgroup led by Dominik Grzyb 3Z9DX which operated from many Pacific islands at their own cost and never asked for any donation.
Is there a better way to spend funds to promote ham radio and make it attractive to young people?
The recent 8R7X Guyana 2024 DXPedition shows one of the best examples of such spending.
Four young amateurs do this DXPedition led by German amateur Philipp Springer DK6SP.
Philipp, age 26 is accompanied by England’s Jamie Williams M0SDV age 23, German Sven Lovric DJ4MX age 21, and Hungarian Tomi Varro HA8RT age 25.

All of them are experienced contest operators. They took part in major HF competitions from big European and North American contest stations, WRTC championships, and African and Pacific DXPeditions.
They equally well operate on three needed modes CW, SSB, and DIGITAL which is important for 24/7 nonstop DXPedition operations in shifts.

The 8R7X station layout shows 4 interconnected operating positions with a lot of equipment and antennas which were sent to Guyana by sea in advance.
Excellent planning and preparation resulted in error-free operation from the start. Their transmit signal levels were equal to or stronger than those of neighboring South American stations.
8R7X reception of weak DX signals from Europe and Asia was absolutely outstanding, especially on low bands. This helped them to make more than 2500 QSOs on 160 meters where their signals were reliably copied in Central Europe even when they have transmitted 3 FT8 streams.
Below is the FAIRS WEBSDR http://194.44.134.212:8901/ reception of the 8R7X 160 meters FT8 operation. WEBSDR is located in KN19XM about 30 km from Lviv city center, Ukraine.

Another exceptionally positive 8R7X team action is instantly confirming their contacts in The Log of The World (LoTW) https://lotw.arrl.org at no cost.
The vast majority of “big” and “not so big” DXPeditions are asking $5 and more for this even though LoTW is a free service. Hopefully, this noble action by young DXPeditioners will help to break this tendency.