There comes a point in every man’s life when he must stop blaming himself if things go wrong and, instead, shift the blame elsewhere. I reached that point some years ago…
For a long time, whenever disaster struck one of my DXpeditions, I’d reluctantly entertain the possibility that I’d contributed to it. Maybe I hadn’t prepared properly, perhaps I’d overlooked something, or maybe too many beers the previous evening had somehow compromised my normally razor-sharp decision-making.
Maybe, as some particularly cruel observers have suggested, I’m simply a shit operator…
After collecting enough material to eliminate all those ridiculous theories, however, I concluded that I’m the victim of something far more sinister.
DXpedition Voodoo.
There’s no doubt in my mind that someone — somewhere in our DX Community — has a small doll of me and has made me their Voodoo Bitch. And whilst I’ve never laid eyes on this human-shaped effigy, I have formed a fairly clear picture in my head of what it might look like…
20 cm tall.
Love handles.
Big, crooked nose.
Tight Delta-Alfa shirt to make muscles look bigger.
There’s probably a miniature IC-7300 strapped around its waist, an antenna to its back and an expression of inflated ego stitched permanently onto its face.
And this isn’t some decorative little figurine sitting harmlessly on a shelf, mind you. This supernatural pin cushion has been worked over.
Its body is surely riddled with pins, and somebody, somewhere, keeps this doll in a drawer labelled:
43DA001 — OPEN BEFORE DXPEDITION
Whenever I leave Australia with DX kit in tow, the keeper of this doll retrieves it. No doubt he checks my itinerary, places the doll on some sort of makeshift altar and lights a candle. Perhaps he pours himself a whiskey or mutters an incantation. Then he gets to work…
A pin hammered through the suitcase.
Another through the transceiver.
Another through the antenna.
Occasionally one into the liver.
And, judging by some of the questionable operating decisions I’ve made over the years, he’s spent considerable time attacking the brain.
This isn’t random anymore, Guys.
It’s personal.
There are those who’ll argue that the common denominator in all these incidents is me…
I’ve considered this.
Briefly.
But that argument is deeply flawed and here’s why…
THE ANCIENT WARNING
My suspicions were confirmed when I recently stumbled across what I believe to be ancient transcripts concerning Polynesian fishermen…
I won’t reveal where I found them, who translated them, whether they’ve been authenticated or whether this civilisation actually existed. Serious researchers don’t get bogged down in details.
What matters is that when nets disappeared, canoes overturned, storms appeared from nowhere or somebody forgot the paddles, these fishermen didn’t waste time looking for the idiot responsible.
They blamed supernatural forces — and frankly, they may have been onto something.
For decades, I’ve travelled around the Pacific activating remote islands, leaving behind broken equipment, destroyed luggage, angry officials, electrical failures, injuries and bewildered pileups…
For years I called these things ‘incidents’.
Now I call them ‘evidence’.
This curse has shadowed me across oceans, over reefs and onto some of the most far-flung IOTA destinations in the Pacific.
And somewhere behind it sits a small, battered doll, goatee beard, receding hairline, overly tight DA-RC shirt, ready to make my life a living hell.
EXHIBIT A: NAOERO
Consider my recent arrival on Naoero Atoll for 271DA0…
The principal purpose of travelling here was to operate radio. To operate radio, I required an antenna, and to support the antenna, I required a mast.
This is advanced DX theory, Men, but stay with me…
I departed Brisbane with both.
I’d paid more than $800 AUD in excess baggage fees. The mast and antenna were inspected, bubble-wrapped, and checked in at the airport.
Everything was good to go.
Somewhere, thousands of kilometres away, however, a drawer creaked open…
The doll came out.
The practitioner — let’s call him the Voodoo Doctor — checked my itinerary.
Naoero.
A Most Wanted, hey.
He smiled.
“FUCK YOU, DARREN!”
The pre-DXpedition ritual began, and the Psychopath with the sewing kit slowly buried a pin through the doll’s tiny bubble-wrapped antenna…
Inexplicably, the mast and antenna didn’t make it onto the airplane.
My clothes arrived. Other non-essentials too. The equipment paramount for the entire purpose of the expedition, though, had apparently gone walkabout somewhere between Brisbane and Naoero.
Like a cheap telescopic mast in a cyclone, my carefully planned DXpedition had collapsed.
PIN.
For the first 24 hours of my stay, when I should have been on the mic smashing pileups, I foraged around the phosphate pinnacles and coconut palms of Naoero for materials to construct a mast…
Normal tourists forage for souvenirs.
I forage for aluminium. PVC pipe. Bamboo.
An outsider might call this bad luck. An idiot might suggest airlines occasionally misplace baggage and it was just a coincidence.
But what are the chances they’d lose the one piece of luggage containing my mast and main antenna?
A coincidence, seriously?
I think not.
Somewhere, whoever’s conjuring this shit leans back, looks at the doll and thinks:
“LET’S SEE WHAT THE AUSSIE BASTARD BUILDS NOW!”
It was while sitting on this obscure Pacific atoll, staring at the empty space where my main antenna and mast should’ve been, that I began looking back over my DXpedition history, reflecting on all the things that had gone wrong…
And that’s when things got really disturbing.
The proof wasn’t confined to one trip, one DXCC or even one decade. It was everywhere, and once I started digging through the case files, incidents I’d dismissed for years as bad luck suddenly looked less like coincidence and more like the work of a bastard with a box of pins.
There was no neat chronological progression to the attacks, either.
The faceless bastard apparently worked according to mood — sometimes targeting equipment or electricity, sometimes involving local authorities or wildlife and, occasionally, apparently just for entertainment value, going directly after me.
So let’s open the files…
CASE FILE: THE SPY WHO CAN’T OPERATE SPLIT
In 2014, 341DA0 produced one of the more bizarre entries in the file…
I can picture the Voodoo Villain seeing Timor-Leste on the itinerary and deciding a simple lost suitcase wasn’t enough.
“No. This one calls for a more ‘intimate’ intervention…”
He takes the little 43DA001 doll.
Shackles its feet with chains.
Places it beneath a desk lamp.
And jabs a pin marked ‘CAVITY SEARCH’ directly into its arse!
The record suggests that upon stepping off the plane at Dili International Airport, I was detained by armed soldiers and spent several hours in an interrogation room suspected of espionage…
Espionage lol.
Me.
This was extremely flattering.
It was also completely ridiculous.
I’m a guy who’s previously called CQ on one band while listening for replies on another.
Not another frequency.
Another band.
I’ve also used my 11 m callsign on the amateur bands with the wrong pre-recorded voice announcement.
James Bond I am not.
In fact, if a foreign government ever recruited me for espionage, I’d probably transmit the classified info on 27 MHz, listen for the response on 14 MHz and identify myself using the wrong QRZ…
Nevertheless, there I sat in an interrogation room, answering questions while apparently under suspicion of being some sort of international spy.
Eventually I was released.
Some might call it an unfortunate misunderstanding.
I recognised it immediately.
A completely different category of attack.
PIN.
CASE FILE: ENEMY OF THE AUSTRALIAN NAVY
Then there’s the Christmas Island — 217DA0 — catastrophe file back in 2014 and another Most Wanted Voodoo intervention…
History records that I was shut down by the Australian Federal Police and threatened with arrest over allegations that I was deliberately causing interference to naval vessels offshore.
Apparently, I’d been promoted.
I’d gone from harmless DXpeditioner to electronic warfare specialist without so much as a training course.
This would’ve been impressive had I possessed even the slightest knowledge of electronic warfare.
I didn’t.
I was trying to work DX.
Somehow, putting up a wire antenna and punching out a hundred watts on 27 MHz had escalated into discussions with federal officers about my alleged interference with the Australian Navy…
Think about the progression here.
Lost luggage. Espionage. Electronic warfare against the Australian Navy.
Apparently, the Voodoo doesn’t specialise. It just keeps expanding its portfolio.
“NATO is monitoring the situation closely and urges 43DA001 to step away from the PTT.”
CASE FILE: FIJI — THE 20-WATT LIMIT
Then there was Fiji for 99DA/OC-121, where the practitioner apparently discovered that a reliable source of electricity is rather important when you’re trying to run a DXpedition…
I was QRV from a major tourist resort on Beachcomber Island back in 2014 when I discovered an interesting relationship between RF output and the continued functioning of the hotel’s electrical system.
At low power, everything was fine.
Then I transmitted with more than 20 watts.
CLICK.
Darkness.
The maintenance crew reset everything, so naturally I tried again.
CLICK.
Darkness.
The entire bloody resort.
After several highly scientific experiments, with furious guests and resort staff threatening to feed me to the fish, I established the following…
20 watts output = Tropical paradise.
25 watts output = Collapse of civilisation.
Eventually I became frightened of the PTT button and remained hidden behind a poolside cabana, cocktail in hand.
A DXpeditioner afraid to TX is like a fisherman terrified of water, but one overenthusiastic CQ could potentially plunge several hundred holidaymakers into darkness.
Conventional thinkers blamed RF for this ill-fated situation.
But they hadn’t seen the pattern.
Somewhere, somebody was flicking a little switch beside the doll and laughing their head off.
PIN.
CASE FILE: THREE WEEKS. NINETY-NINE CONTACTS.
Then there was the heartache of Temotu Province back in 2017. Three weeks for 339DA0 on a remote speck in the Pacific, with a big-gun portable station installed and bucketloads of excitement across the DX Community…
This time, though, the Prick-with-Pins changed tactics.
There were no police involved, no missing equipment and no electrical catastrophe to rip the guts out of the DXpedition.
This time he wanted psychological combat, and he achieved it with ruthless precision.
I imagine him sitting beside the doll with a small notebook, keeping a tally of every QSO before suddenly slamming the log shut…
Twenty-one days after arriving, my magnificent contribution to international DX history stood at:
99 contacts.
Not 990.
Not 9,900.
Ninety-nine.
I’ve heard people accidentally make more contacts while testing their SWR.
“NO MORE CONTACTS FOR YOU, DAZ.”
Every morning in that godforsaken place I woke convinced the band would finally open…
It didn’t.
I called, listened, changed beam headings and triple-checked antennas.
Nothing.
Propagation treated me like I’d personally insulted the ionosphere’s mother.
By the third week, I wasn’t studying propagation…
I was negotiating with it.
“Pleaseeeeee, at least make triple figures.”
Nope.
Ninety-nine.
FUCK IT!
CASE FILE: THE VANUATU SABOTEUR
In 2022, 197DA/DX in the New Hebrides islands produced one of the more creative attacks as my supernatural saboteur had apparently started outsourcing his treachery. I imagine it went like this…
The 43DA001 Voodoo doll is laid down on a table, a length of miniature coax is around its neck, and a tiny plastic dog is placed beside it.
Perhaps there’s whispering in its ear. Some sort of conjuration.
“You know what to do.”
The record shows a dog chewed through my coax and shut the activity down until a new one could be sourced…
Read that again.
A dog chewed through the coax.
DXpedition OVER (Albeit for a day or 2).
Incredibly, of all the objects available to this animal — sticks, shoes, coconuts, furniture, food, other dogs — it selected the cable connecting my radio to the antenna…
One bite through the coax and half the expedition was cactus.
Coincidence?
Please.
I don’t blame the dog.
The mutt was merely an instrument.
Possessed, perhaps.
Somewhere, whoever’s working the doll twisted the coax tighter around it and the dog’s hair bristled.
PIN.
CASE FILE: WHEN THE VOODOO ATTACKED ME
Equipment, electricity and local authorities are one thing, but sometimes whoever’s working the doll goes directly after the operator. This happened in Tonga back in 2023…
On the outer island of Eu’a Island for 96DA/OC-049, I was attacked by wasps while outside turning the antenna. My ankle swelled to roughly the size of a football and for two days I was in excruciating pain, barely able to walk.
Somewhere, I imagine my tormentor probing the doll’s tiny ankle.
One pin.
Then another.
Then another.
A violent stab or two for good measure.
There’s something particularly humiliating about travelling thousands of kilometres across the Pacific, determined to conquer the ionosphere…
…only to be defeated by an insect weighing less than a paperclip.
Nature: 1, Daz: 0.
CASE FILE: THE RATS OF HONIARA
Another dive into the DXpedition archives takes us back to Honiara for 135DA0 in 2012…
I was staying in a church hostel when I woke during the night and found myself eyeball-to-eyeball with a rat roughly the size of a domestic cat.
Not some harmless little sewer-fiend either. This was a filthy, mangy, battle-scarred bastard of a rat — the sort of vermin that looked like it’d killed smaller rats for sport.
The rat stared at me.
I stared at the rat.
Neither of us moved.
And judging by the expression on its face, I was next.
Eventually, I reached a disturbing conclusion.
This wasn’t my room.
I was staying in his.
THE SMALL PINS
Of course, not every attack requires police, destroyed antennas or rodents large enough to require their own callsigns. Sometimes the Voodoo prefers persistent, petty persecution…
No elaborate ritual required. No incantations. No offerings. Just the doll, a jar of pins and decades of accumulated malice.
Forgotten power-supply lead that sends me scavenging through an electronics scrapyard.
PIN.
Suitcase damaged between American Samoa and Samoa and contents strewn across the airstrip.
PIN.
Equipment cases dismantled by Customs and returned without being properly reassembled.
PIN.
Machete-wielding taxi driver attempting to rob me outside Dili.
BIGGER FUCKING PIN.
And still……roosters outside my window in Timor-Leste launching their daily assault at 4 am…
PIN.
Cold showers.
PIN.
Mosquitoes.
PIN.
Tropical boils.
PIN.
S9+ electrical interference wiping out the bands every night in Papua New Guinea.
PIN.
At this stage, I imagine the wretched doll resembles a radio operator-shaped echidna…
Individually, these things prove nothing, right?
But collectively?
Wake up, Fools.
Statisticians might point out that I’m the only guy present at every one of these disasters.
But that’s exactly the sort of lazy analysis that allows DXpedition Voodoo to flourish.
BUT WHO’S DOING IT?
This raises the most disturbing question of all…
“WHO THE FUCK IS MESSING WITH THIS VOODOO SHIT?”
Of course, I’ve given it considerable thought — too much thought, according to some who liken me to a piece of electrical tape that just won’t let go of shit.
There must be a motive, and increasingly, I don’t think this is some guy just having a bit of fun.
This sadistic prick has a serious grudge.
Perhaps it’s someone I didn’t put in the log in the late ’90s, a guy whose callsign I busted and refused to correct, or someone who’s still waiting for a QSL card from decades ago…
Perhaps I said “QRZ?” after they’d already given me their callsign fourteen times.
An AT Member?
Now there’s a possibility.
A jealous ham?
Maybe.
The wife at home?
Surely not.
THE INVESTIGATION CLEARS ME
After reviewing more than 20 years of DXpedition disasters with the sort of forensic objectivity you’d expect from a man investigating himself, I’ve reached the only reasonable conclusion…
I’ve been cleared.
Completely.
I accept no responsibility for the arrests, interrogations, electrical failures, destroyed equipment, missing baggage, wildlife attacks, lousy propagation or occasional acts of questionable radio operation documented in this investigation.
I also categorically reject the outrageous suggestion that better planning, fewer rig-side beers or improved operating competence might’ve prevented any of them.
The evidence points elsewhere.
It’s clear that somewhere in the world sits a deeply disturbed guy with a Darren Johnston DXpedition Voodoo Doll and he’s jabbing the shit out of it…
After all these years, that thing must be an absolute wreck — pins everywhere, coax wrapped around its neck, tiny bite marks and probably rat shit on the DA-RC shirt.
I don’t know who has it.
I don’t know what I did to piss him off.
But I know one thing.
Right now, I’m on Naoero.
My main antenna and mast are missing.
Somewhere, another pin is being sharpened.
That deranged fucker knows where I am!
73 de Darren, 43DA001
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