Archive - January 2022

VE3LYC ‘Dream Big & Dare to Fail’ Book

20 January 2022
VE3LYC Cezar’s new Book, ‘Dream Big and Dare to Fail’ now being  mailed by the M0OXO QSL Service.
Reserve your copy today!
“​This book is addressed to all radio amateurs, chasers and activators alike. It will take you through the voyages I carried out as a solo operator or team member of various radio expeditions, from the Arctic to the Sub-Antarctic regions. You will join me along each journey and discover the challenges encountered in bringing on the air remote islands belonging to 25 IOTA references, 19 of which ranked in the Top #30 on the IOTA Most Wanted List out of 1136 groups activated to date. Apart from its documentary aspect I wished to provide, I hope that its reading will encourage everyone to pursue his/her own adventure dream, whichever may be, and strengthen his/her resolve in coping with all the ups and downs that it may entail. This project also gave me a new opportunity to acknowledge many of those who helped me bring my own adventure dreams to life.”

New Mailing Solutions

16 January 2022

With the significant changes to International mailings now being enforced by world Customs areas, it has meant that this also effects QSL management and i believe that we are the only QSL management team in the world that has been working with our national mail provider, Royal Mail, to discuss mailing solutions and secure access to the right products to keep the direct and bureau QSL cards posted.
The products that we had been using for many years were getting more expensive and were not suitable in the current Covid and customs climate.

Royal Mail had made the decision that these products were going to be removed and replaced by a new stream of mailing products that had to be accessed only by an online mailing solution to give us the correct customs clearance for the Bureau dispatches, however we urgently still require IARU to discuss a unique commodity code to reflect the “0” value at customs of QSL cards. It is quite clear that we are a long way off from this if it happens at all, the result of this no action is that Bureau boxes are now attracting TAX and handling fees around the world which some IARU Bureaus are failing to understand and refusing to pay the TAX and i have to say that I predicted this as far back as 2017, which begs the question why has no action been taken to secure the future of QSL’ing?

For “Direct QSL cards” we are proud to announce that we have secured access to a new mailing product which secures a better package for our daily mailing of direct QSL cards around the world. Prices are considerably more competitive and means that there will be no price rises for your QSL requests going forward into 2022. This is great news for those that enjoy QSl’ing and excellent news for DXpeditions using our QSL services. We are very confident that our UK QSL managers are the only worldwide QSL providers that work with our national providers to give you the best QSL service out there today.

JW0X QO-100 DX-pedition

2 January 2022

We take up the challenge… Please mark 22 | 23 | 24 April 2022 in your calendar. From 78° North, the first Svalbard “QO-100 DX-pedition”.

For Full website information click here:
When we posted our first messages on social media that we were planning to travel to Svalbard, we were quite quickly contacted by several radio amateurs from all over Europe asking if QO-100 would be part of this DX-pedition.

Others wanted to provide us with a complete QO-100 station. We answered every message saying we would investigate the possibilities.

In the meantime, we did some research and to our great surprise we couldn’t find anything about QO-100 activations from Svalbard. The search continued but it yielded nothing. We contacted active QO-100 users, but nobody had JW – Svalbard in his logbook. This became even more fascinating to us, and we had to conclude that apparently no one had ever activated QO-100 from Svalbard.

We looked closely at several QO-100 footprints and scoured quite a few websites so we could prepare further. We found out that the QO-100 satellite is totally inaccessible from Longyearbyen. The high mountain peaks and very low elevation of only 3° made it impossible. This finding was not a nice feeling and made us immediately realize why no one has activated QO-100 from Svalbard yet. In the meantime, we were so fascinated that we continued our search for a solution.

Via Google and by watching a lot of YouTube movies, we came across Svalsat. Svalsat is an ESA satellite base at 400 meters ASL. We had contact with Ole Petter Storstad from the ESA Svalsat station. He answered all our messages nicely but unfortunately, he could not help us. He had left Svalbard two years ago and was no longer the director of the ESA Svalsat base. All other contacts with Svalsat were fruitless. After further research, the mountain peaks would also remain a problem here. So no guarantee of success from this location and we certainly didn’t want to take that risk.
Kapp Linné – Isfjord Radio
Finally, our eye fell on Kapp Linné a place where also Isfjord Radio is located. From this location we have a nice open view towards the QO-100 satellite and no mountain tops to make life difficult for us.

During the month of April, it is still very cold winter weather, so Kapp Linné is not accessible by boat because the sea is completely frozen. The only way to get there is by snowmobile. Via the mainland, this is a trip that takes at least five hours in temperatures of -20° a -25° Celcius. If the weather is very bad, this can quickly increase to seven hours.

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Raivavae Island DX-pedition (OC-114)

2 January 2022

A team of seven experienced DX-pedition / contest operators will activate Raivavae (Austral Islands) OC-114, French Polynesia as TX5N from April 16 to April 28, 2022. Team members are: Rob N7QT, Walt N6XG, Heye DJ9RR, Gene K5GS, Steve W1SRD, Melanie N7BX and Doris K0BEE.

Current plans call for Elecraft K3 / amplifier equipped stations. Beach mounted verticals and one hexbeam round out the antenna plan. They will operate 10 – 160m, CW, SSB and Digital. The QSL manager will be Tim M0URX

The team will meet in Papeete, Tahiti on April 12th and fly to Raivavae on April 15th. As with all international travel, Covid restrictions may require us to reschedule or cancel.
Thiss self-funded project welcomes your donations through the website. Donations will be used to off-set the equipment shipping expenses.

Website: https://tx5n.netPlease direct questions to: [email protected]
73, Team TX5N  Happy New Year  GS K5GS