Archive - January 2017

Darwin Amateur Radio Club Northern Territory

VI8BOD Active 0330Z 18th February 2017 to 1630Z 28th March 2017, NT, Australia

Darwin Amateur Radio Club Inc.  Press Release No 1

(PLEASE NOTE – At any time the log on OQRS may not be complete as logs will be incoming from several operators.)

The Event  The 19th February 2017 is the 75th anniversary of the Japanese bombing of Darwin. The first attack was carried out utilising the Aircraft carrier force which struck Pearl Harbour on the 7th December 1941. A second following aerial attack was carried out by land base bombers from the Dutch East Indies 2 hours later in the same day.

More aircraft attacked Darwin, a greater tonnage of bombs was dropped (but no torpedoes) and more ships, (of lesser aggregate tonnage) were destroyed and loss of life was in the order of 10% of that suffered in Pearl Harbour

The city was virtually destroyed, and defence installations were heavily damaged.

As with Pearl Harbour, advance warning of the attack was given (by the mission on Bathurst Island), but was not acted upon, hence the city was totally unprepared and not aware of the attack until bombs started to hit the town.

There were 46 ships in Darwin Harbour at the time of the first Air Raid. Of these 21 were sunk and a further 2 were sunk off Bathurst Island, one of which was not found until 2008

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Well, this is what happens when you do not check QSL information! Here is a pile of QSL cards for 9M6XRO, but because the sender did not put “QSL Via M0URX” then of course they have gone to Malaysia Amateur Radio Transmitting Society. the cards are with John, 9M6XRO amd we will now have the expense of re routing the cards to the United Kingdom.

CHECK the QSL info BEFORE you dump a QSL into the bureau.
QRZ.com profile quite clearly states “please do not send your card via Bureau USE OQRS.”

Most of the QSL cards should have been requested on OQRS avoiding this problem.

9M6XRO, John Plenderleith, was recently operating from the Mount Kinablu National Park, Dream World Resort. Here is John’s report along with some photos.

“The sign at the gate says “Relax Amidst the Clouds”, well at times we were ABOVE the clouds and for long periods we were actually in them.

Visibility often changed from unlimited to totally misty in a matter of minutes. Temperatures were very cool all day and more so at night.

The town down the hill is Kundasang which is the location of Mount Kinabalu National Park, a start point for climbing Mt Kinabalu.

Kundasang is on the route we passed a few years back when driving from KK to Tawau for the Sebatik Island trips. Due to the elevation that area produces all the veg and most of the fruit for Sabah as well as for export. We loaded up on the way back and also bought a load of barbecued wild boar meat which they bbq and sell by the roadside. 

As you can see in one photo Mount Kinabalu (about 14,000 ft high) was almost plumb North of us so most of the stuff I worked apart from JA was LP. As you can see, there was a great take-off to the South.”
John reports making several hundred QSOs from this location mainly on LF and some Qs to North America Long Path, as usual all QSOs have been uploaded to LoTW and OQRS is open.

United Radio QSL Bureau are sponsoring the QSL management of GB1SWC a Special Event Station at The Beacon Museum, Whitehaven will host a variety of special events throughout the weekend of 11th – 12th March 2017 to support local charity Samaritans of West Cumbria and to raise awareness of the work undertaken by Samaritans.

In addition to the scheduled beacon exhibits on display, members of the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) will broadcast voice and digital mode transmissions from Amateur Radio Station GB1SWC. As well as live tracking of the International Space Station and other interactive demonstrations such as a Morse Code Game, there will be sending and receiving of Television pictures and digital information over radio waves.

If radio conditions are favourable members of the public will also be invited to exchange greeting messages on air with licensed stations in the UK and abroad.  

Suicide kills three times more people than road traffic accidents and West Cumbria has one of the highest suicide rates in the UK. Local volunteers from Samaritans will be on hand during the weekend to explain the work of their organisation and can be available to talk with anyone in private and in confidence if needed.

Nationally Samaritans respond to more than 5 million calls for help a year and it is only through the public’s kind donations and our trained volunteers that ensures we are always there for anyone struggling to cope.

Over the last few years there has been some dramatic changes to how we all request our QSL cards. In Direct QSL requests it is quite significant that we  are now requesting over 90% of these using OQRS as opposed to sending a direct letter. This data is measured here by our own OQRS system. This means that you not only get your QSL card much quicker by using OQRS, it also saves us a lot of time in processing your QSL request.

An added feature is the “Busted / Missing Call” form in which you can make an inquiry all in-house without emailing the QSL manager.
Some of you are confused about the “QSL Via” field – This is ONLY to be used if your bureau QSL is to be sent to YOUR QSL manager. It is NOT for your email address or for any greetings message and it most certainly should not be to write M0URX or your QSL request will just come back to me!

There is still much work to do in educating DX chasers on how to use OQRS. In particular we are experiencing a lack of use from the “Bureau” users, for DXpeditions, IOTA, Holiday stations and many rare DX stations, you should NOT be sending your QSL cards through the bureau. We need you to utilise the OQRS service.

Please – Always check on QRZ.com for QSL info!

Here at the United Radio QSL Bureau we practice “Responsible QSL’ing” and we ask you to do the same.

We are particularly concerned about QSL’ers and Contesters from JA, DL, OH, OK, UA who continue to “QSL ALL” QSOs from their log and perform QSL card dumps into their respective IARU QSL Bureaus. This practice is an example of irresponsible QSL’ing. The cost in both time and money to process such vast amounts of QSL cards is quite honestly staggering! Worst offenders of such behaviour are well known contest stations and we ask you to please STOP dumping your logs into the QSL Bureaus of the world. It is of course done for “Branding” purposes of the contest station so that the stations that they work remember the call sign and work them again in the next contest and the next and the next and then of course another dozen QSL exchanges are generated automatically by the QSL dumping of the contest station. This of course is very self-defeating, why? Most contest stations either do not pick up their bureau cards or they have a QSL manager deal with them, so the operators will probably never even see who has sent the QSL cards so the “branding” exercise is very flawed. Not to mention all the QSL cards that are sent to non-affilated call signs which all then have to be returned to the contest station. More waste!

The waste that this creates is quite huge, yet every single one of those useless requests has to be checked into the logs here just in case one of them is a “GENUINE” bureau request. This can take hundreds of man hours every year that is just here with the work I do. SO around the world there will be thousands and thousands of hours wasted processing the bureau cards from contest stations that are not requested or wanted or even want a reply back. This is beyond selfish, it is down right not acceptable! The money used by the world IARU Bureaus to ship all these cards that are not requested or wanted could be much better spent. Think about it!

Much investment has gone into Online QSL Request System development to save time in processing QSL requests this is very evident with the bureau requests, we do not have to wait three years to receive your card. Your QSL will be sent on our next dispatch to your IARU Bureau. Please help us in reducing the bureau waste! Thank you!

Ron Vadeboncoeur VE3REV is QRV in Senegal as 6W1SU operting from Dakar.
QSL cards are available for request on OQRS Please do not send us any bureau cards, use OQRS.
LoTW will be uploaded when I get each log upload.

Ron has asked that you read the following while you are in the pile up!

Hello! I have been licenced for 20 years as VE3REV and moved to Dakar, Senegal in August 2016 for 2+ years. I have not been very active, therefore, still consider myself a “Novice”. So, I ask for the following when making a QSO:

1) Be Tolerant: I may not be a good operator, yet, but I WANT TO LEARN;

2) Be Patient: I will be in Dakar for two or three years and will be active from 6m down to 80m. If you don’t work me the first time, there will be many other chances! Operating phone only but hoping to tackle CW later;

3) Be Polite: I have never worked pile ups before. If they occur, I will try to “manage” them the best I can using prefix numbers, geographic location, etc. I dislike QSOs being broken by over-zealous operators, so if you cut in at an inappropriate time, you just might get ignored…being Canadian, I must conclude by saying “Sorry” 🙂

4) Be Supportive: I gladly accept constructive criticism and advice. Feel free to email me.

Equipment: 

Kenwood TS850S (thanks to VE9CB)
ICOM 551D 6m with IC-PS20 power supply 
Yaesu FL1200Z amplifier
MA5B 3-element trapped yagi 10/12/15/17/20m
6m 6JXX6 6-element yagi (thanks to F6EPY)
40m and 80m dipoles

• Location: [Pretty sweet I’m told] In downtown Dakar (Le Plateau) with a clear, western view of the ocean 250m away, looking directly at Les Iles des Madeleines. Antennae located on building roof about 50m above ground and 65m above sea level. Look forward to working the world! 73 Ron 6W1SU – VE3REV

An issue that we are faced with every day is people saying that they have lost QSO details, had a HDD crash or that their dog ate the log.
We are continually challenged about our response.

I consulted ARRL DXCC, LoTW to get some guidance on our responsibilities on this matter and here is their response:

“I spoke to DXCC and Norm Fusaro to see if anything was actually WRITTEN regarding this issue.
Like LoTW, there is not anything written.  It is a matter of Ethics.

The reason for not giving out the QSO information is so that persons cannot claim credit for a QSO that was not actually made.  It is protection of the data and the integrity of the DXCC program.   

This is to keep the QSO information genuine for a prestigious and sought-after award.  

If someone contacts you, and they use LoTW, the data of the QSO is in their LoTW account.  If they need their QSO/QSL log file, it can be obtained from Rick Murphy’s LoTW site at:  http://www.rickmurphy.net/lotwquery.html

If they do not use LoTW, this is another issue.  You are correct in not just giving out the QSO information if they ask without providing any information themselves.”

The answer is quite simple. Back up your ADIF log. Also, set up accounts with Club Log & LoTW, upload your logs regularly and then you will always have a record and backed up data of your log. Our policy is in line with the ethics of the DXCC Award Program and we will not give out QSO data, there is no excuse for losing your data. Back it up! We ask that you do not ask us for QSO data as we are not in a position to give the data to you.