Busy few days here at the office, the 7P8OK Direct QSL cards are arriving at the destinations around the world, while Bureau cards have been sent direct to 14 European Bureaus and to JARL for a speedy journey through the Bureau. The remaining 100 cards will be sent Via RSGB Bureau next week.
I received a box of 4,000 QSL cards from the Bureau which all had to be sorted for the G4Dxx and G4Rxx call series they were all dispatched on Friday. Which left me with 1,100 QSL cards for the callsigns that I manage, many hours of work processing the cards and I am well on my way to completing the job and I will have them sent back through the Bureau next week.
Then of course it has been a great time on HF with some excellent DX’peditions hitting the air. FT5GA Glorioso Island was a all time new one with 4 band slots at Château Beaumont on 12m, 15m, 17m, and 20m. I have listened to these guys for hours while I have been working in the shack, and all 5 of them have done such a great job from Glorioso. They have military work to do as well as the radio expedition so brilliant job lads!
Then my attention was turned to the waters of the Pacific Ocean, Conway Reef near Fiji to be precise, the team of 3D20CR were doing an incredible job, I first heard them on Friday afternoon when I got home from work for several hours their signal was 5/2 at a time when I had not expected to hear them on 20m. Saturday was a busy work day for me so it had to be Sunday when my chance was to come, I decided to get up early and watch the Formula 1 race from Japan, as the race progressed 3D20CR were getting stronger to 5/5 when I heard M0BZH work them, at this point they called for United Kingdom only on 14.220 MHz, but the pile up still kept calling again they asked only for UK I was beginning to shake and sweat, this was my best chance, with one clear call I shouted again “Mike Zero Uniform Romeo X-Ray” I un-keyed waiting to see if they had heard me, it seemed like eternity but It was no more than a fraction of a second, “M0URX 5/9” wow the feeling of a new one! It’s awesome.
This afternoon conditions to West Coast of North America were very good and Africa too on 20m with a new IOTA group on air for me AF-061 C91VM/5 on 20m.
In the UK it is very difficult to find a way to put up a full size HF antenna that is going to get you heard in the pile ups, the “G3TXQ Broadband Hexbeam” is where UK operators are finding an antenna that really
works and I would like to wish my DX buddy MW0JZE Ant the best of luck as he goes into production soon with this antenna. I bought his prototype off him and I can’t sing his praises enough for a thoroughly professionally build quality, good luck Ant! To find out more about MW0JZE and the Hexbeam project Click Here
Next weekend is the RSGB Convention, I will be there! So will many of my friends, its time to enjoy the presentations, and relax over many beers, yes probably too many beers and talk RADIO! If you see me, mines a Lager ok?
Thanks to Colin in Sweden for sending me the photo on the right, yes that is me on the left looking towards the camera 20 years ago in about 1989 I think. With the blue T shirt is Steve G0UIH, Ian M0KCM with the hat and Dave. We have all put on several kilos since then!
Reminder: Steve, 9M6DXX, and John, 9M6XRO, will operate from Pulau Labuan (IOTA OC-133) from 6 to 8 November (and possibly for one or two hours from 0000UTC on 9 November) as follows: 9M6DXX/P 10m – 80m on SSB only; 9M6XRO/P 10m – 160m on CW and RTTY. Stations will be using linear amplifiers to a multi-band vertical and a 160m inverted-L, both mounted very close to the ocean. We hope it will be possible to operate on 160m CW at the same time as SSB on the other bands. QSL both 9M6DXX/P and 9M6XRO/P via M0URX, either direct, via the bureau or LoTW.
