As a kid I was observing a major sewer project in my community. At this time, it was pick and shovel work and I asked one of the crew how far down are you digging. His response was all the way to China.
Suddenly it struck me that if you dug down far enough you would come out the other side of the earth, which from my location in Western PA likely would-be China.
In a recent SS Podcast #262, N2CQR used a term named antipode which loosely translated means opposite of, which was news to me. In essence an antipode station would be the same distance opposite to you whether you set your hex beam to long path or short path.
The temptation was too great and so I used the antipode app to find the antipode of Newbury Park (LA). There was no specific finding for my actual QTH, so I used LA which is close. BUT I did discover there is a Newbury Park in the UK.
Here is the closest land mass antipode to my QTH, Reunion Island and yes, another DX location.
Reunion Island is Southeast of Continental Africa and is a French Territory, thus the call sign prefix FR. It is substantively larger than Pitcairn, like 970 square miles and almost 900,000 population, but not overly populated with individually licensed hams. It has been a DX Expedition site including a crew from Croatia. So, it is on the rare side of the fence and a DX Entity. One ham FR5DN is doing some interesting work with EME and tropospheric scattering and has a website dedicated to this work. The website URL is in his QRZ.com page which is the link.
The island population dating back to the 1700's was used for plantations growing sugar cane and vanilla beans. Its name has been changed several times but always has been French post 1700's. The French Armed Forces have a significant military base on the island. With the opening of the Suez Canal this changed its economic impact.
Today tourism is a major source of income, but Reunion Island was severely impacted with the 2008 meltdown and the Covid19 pandemic. It has a major international airport and seaports as well.
So, Reunion Island just might be another candidate for a small, low-cost DX Expedition. ICOM may have some interest in supporting the effort if your rig of choice is an ICOM IC7300 MKII.
Them that know can make things go.
It is interesting to see the tantalizing dynamic between MTG and old what is his name. Amazing how some forever joined at the hip suddenly become disjointed. Unlike a good mystery, we already know the ending.
73's
Pete N6QW