Since 1998, OH2AQ DX Summit, the Web-based spotting network portal, has been a tool for DX hunting and spotting. Ten years after its inception and introduction to Amateur Radio operators in search of that rare DX station once only dreamed about, a new DX Summit is being released on Friday, May 23 at 1600 UTC.

Supported by the Yasme Foundation, the new DX Summit is operated by Arcala Extremes, OH8X, and supported by Yasme Foundation. "This new DX Summit boasts a 1000-fold increase in computing power with easy access to configure a Microsoft Server 2003 platform with dedicated servers for information handling and data storage," said Yasme Foundation President Wayne Mills, N7NG. "A huge amount of data will be collected for potential future applications. The actual servers are located in the US; the system was developed by Admino Technologies Ltd, based out of Oulu, Finland."

Mills said that Arcala Extremes is "a group of serious hams who seek technical innovations, experimenting with advanced radio and antenna concepts to further the evolution of Amateur Radio by using a competitive spirit to attract young people." Their stations -- OH8X and CU2A -- are located in Oulu, Finland and the Azores Islands, respectively.

"Traffic congestion should be a thing of the past [with the new DX Summit]," Mills said. He invites Amateur Radio operators to "sample the speed and functionality during this coming weekend's CQ WPX CW contest." Interested hams should reconfigure their setup to www.dxsummit.fi -- making sure to update any browser bookmarks -- since the original OH2AQ DX Summit will soon be shut down. "While the new system begins as a stepped-up carbon copy of the original OH2AQ DX Summit, it will provide an advanced technical platform for many new features that are on the drawing board as we speak," Mills stated.

Mills said that Jukka Salomaa, OH2BUA, and Antti Kantola, OH5TB, were awarded the Yasme Excellence Award for conceiving, operating, and maintaining the OH2AQ DX Summit: "They created a tool that fundamentally changed the nature of HF operating, a true advancement of the radio art." The Yasme Foundation is a non-profit corporation undertaking scientific and educational projects related to Amateur Radio, including DXing and the introduction and promotion of Amateur Radio in developing countries.