Author - Tim Beaumont

Here is the QSL design for the recent activity from V31IT Madison, in Belize. Thank you to Max ON5UR for the QSL design.

For Immediate Release  Press Release #1 March 15, 2019

South Orkney Islands DXpedition (AN-008)

After their successful VP6D Ducie Island 2018 DXpedition, the Perseverance DX Group (pdxg.net) is pleased to  announce their intention to activate South Orkney Islands, currently ClubLog #16 most wanted.

Planning has begun for an expedition in Feb/Mar, 2020. A team of experienced DX and Contest operators will operate from Signy Island for up to 15 days. The process of obtaining landing permission is underway. The call sign will be announced at a later date. The team will sail from Punta Arenas, Chile aboard RV Braveheart. Seven operating positions are planned for 160-10 meters, SSB/CW/Digital.

The team includes: Dave K3EL, Les W2LK, Steve W1SRD, Ricardo PY2PT, Gene K5GS, Arliss W7XU, Heye DJ9RR, Laci HA0NAR, Mike WA6O, Vadym UT6UD, Walt N6XG and Rob N7QT.

Additional details will be released as they develop. 
Donations may be made via the website. 
Website: https://sorkney.com/
Please direct your questions to: [email protected]

73, South Orkney 2020 Team

VP6D – Ducie Island QSL cards were mailed on Monday, February 4, 2019 from the United Kingdom.
The mailing included all OQRS and Direct Mail confirmation requests received by this mailing. Also included were cards shipped to foundations / clubs for distribution. Subsequent mailings will occur on a regular basis.

Bureau cards will be shipped to the worldwide bureaus at a later date.
Please allow sufficient mail time before inquiring about missing cards.

How is the job done?
There is quite a lot of work in getting the mailing out, labelling the 5,000 envelopes ready for the cards to arrive from the printer is the first job. Once the cards arrive I label all the 6,000 QSL cards and stamp with verification mark.

With all the cards and envelopes in call sign order, it is time to start filling the envelopes with the QSL card and the leaflet from the primary sponsor NCDXF.

As I continue, the envelopes need to be kept in country order as many of the cards are sent using a mailing contract where I am required to bag all the letters for that country, and for the USA I am also required to sort in four Zip code areas before bagging the USA letters as these are sent with routing labels to JFKA, FOA, ORDA and LAXA. Then finally, the complete mailing is taken to the Mail Centre where the mail is loaded to a lorry to go to (HWDC) Heathrow Worldwide Distribution Centre.

Then….. a few days later we see reports on Twitter of the QSL cards arriving like this:

“JH1LPZ @JH1LPZ_DXCC Feb 9
Now it’s my turn! I got QSL for VP6D today. Great.”

I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Best Wishes to all in 2019.
Please note that I will be answering all OQRS and post during the festive season.

To prevent any loss in the mail this week, the next posting date for outgoing direct QSL cards will be Wednesday 2nd January.. 

6Y3T QSL for the CQWW CW Contest 2018 has now been designed by Max, ON5UR. QSL cards will be in the print room soon. OQRS open.

Welcome to TG9AJR, Juan Carlos Muñoz to U.R. QSL Bureau, great to have you on board Juan. The QSL has been designed by Max ON5UR, showing Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. QSL Via OQRS.

When using our OQRS system to request your QSL cards, we have a tool for you to upload your ADIF which autofill’s the QSL request form. All you need from your log is a “Standard ADIF”

If you are using a logging software that exports between 60 to 100 fields in an ADIF this is NON standard.

If you are not familiar with ADIF (Amateur Data Interchange Format) then you can read more on here: http://www.adif.org/adif.html

So if you are not able to upload your ADIF to the tool, please just remove the non-standard fields and this will upload fine!
I highly recommend ADIF Master http://www.dxshell.com/adif-master.html for making amendments to logs and ADIF files.