VE3RZ will be QRV as 6Y3T Jamaica between November 20th to 26th with activity in the CQWW CW contest and will be M/2. Outside the contest the team will try to be QRV on 60m on CW or FT8.
Author - Tim Beaumont
Max ON5UR has designed the Z68UR QSL. Cards will be printed and posted in November.
OQRS is open for your double Z68UR QSL.
Pierre, 5U9AMO will be QRV from Niger between 20 November to 03 December 2018
CQWW CW contest + CW activity before and after
– Yaesu FT-991 transceiver (100 watts output).
– 13.8 volts DC 23 Ampers power supply.
– Spiderbeam 404-UL multiband antenna (10m to 40m).
– Wire antennas for 60m, 80m and 160m.
– 2 Spiderbeam 12 meters telescopic fiber masts.
– 1 Spiderbeam radial connection box.
– 2 x 25m Messi & Paoloni low loss coaxial cable.
– N1MM and Win-Test logging software.
– The 2018 QSOs will be uploaded in LoTW in February 2019
V47X QSL Preview – Thank you to QSL designer Max ON5UR. 
HB0/ON4ANN QSL Preview – Thank you to QSL designer Max ON5UR.
QSL cards will be posted in early November.
HB0/ON4CCV/P HB0/ON4CKM/P WWFF QSL Preview
Here is the busy M0URX shack.
With an abundance of DX’peditions about to take to the air on FT8 using Fox & Hounds it is very important to remember that you must have received “RR73” from the DX station for the QSO to be logged by the DX station.
Sending a screen shot of your signal report exchanges is absolutely pointless and useless. Please let me explain?
The file that counts is the FT8 text file from the DX station. I can search that file in seconds and bring up the exchange between the two stations, I am seeing this time and time again that the DX station has not received the report from the caller so the DX station cannot complete the contact with “RR73” so NO 2 way QSO has been completed.
You can send as many screen shots as you like to show that you sent a report but that does not show, and you do not see that the DX has not received that report and has not completed the QSO with you.
Look, it is as simple as this….. if I was on SSB and recorded myself calling the DXpediton, giving my report that is not proof that the DX heard me… NO QSO!
Please stop sending screen shots they are irrelevant! Try again to make another QSO, or wait until the end of the DXpedition and ask the QSL manager to check the text file of the DXpedition!
As a QSL manager, as well as sending out the QSL cards one important job is to consider busted call or missing call inquiries. This may sound straight forward, after all a QSO is either in the log or it is not. But add in the adrenaline that rushes through the brain when you work an All Time New One (ATNO) then there is a chance of, mishearing, misunderstanding, euphoria, excitement, satisfaction, amazement, or doubt and all those emotions will take a split second.
Quite often after the emotions have passed and this can be literally seconds you think “did I really work that station?”
This is where the online logging comes in to its own, however what happens when you check the log and your call sign isn’t in it? All that adrenaline tells you that you did work it, but in that split second it takes, actually you didn’t, it was someone else with a call sign close to yours, but you are so sure it was you that you send an email to the QSL manager accusing the team of being deaf and stupid, I mean, how can they get MY call sign wrong, everyone knows who I am, top of Honour Roll in all the awards programs! So you demand that the team correct the log immediately. The QSL manager swings into action, emails the logged station, checks the matched data on Logbook of The World and shows the proof that NO, actually the team logged the correct call and you have to deny the DX’er of his moment of glory.
But, making the DX’er actually believe the evidence that you provide is like getting blood from a stone, instead he will email the operator who he thinks he worked and demand that he tells the idiot of a QSL manager he has to correct the log. Then what do you do? Luckily I work with some good DXpedition teams that say my decision is final. Of course I will always double check my facts, and work with the DX team to find the answers.
I think it is also important to consider that the operators on a DXpedition are working long shifts, they also go through spells of euphoria, amazement, excitement, satisfaction and doubt and also spells of despair. These guys are our team in the field or on the Island, sleeping under moonlight, if they are lucky! So please understand that mistakes happen and also consider the conditions at the DXpedition end, they could have Aurora, high noise QRN or QRM, severe weather and not to mention possibly hundreds of stations calling them at the same time, and ask yourself honestly could you cope in these conditions?
DX really IS more important than life or death to some. So why do I do it? Well I ask myself that regularly, but I do love doing what I do, I love DX’ing and QSL’ing and working with the DXpedition teams, it is all part of the game.