Many of you will have worked OY1OF Ólavur Frederiksen form the Faroe Islands, but it is not very often we get to see the person behind the microphone. Ólavur works as a printer on the Faroe Islands and here are some of the photographs of his day job. More info on faroephoto
A new QSL card for Steve PJ4DX has been designed for 2018. Now in the print room!
Thank you to Max ON5UR for the design.
QSL cards have been posted to 86 World Bureaus – Saturday 10th February 2018
This mailing is a joint mailing between M0OXO Charles, M0URX Tim & M0SDV Jamie.
I would very much appreciate feedback from you when the QSL cards start arriving at World Bureaus or received by hams around the world? This feedback will be added to our data below.
This mailing features cards from the recent expeditions, VE3RZ/VP9, PZ5V, 4S7AYG, V47FWX, MU/ON4ANN also YOTA month of December and GB17YOTA. The parcels are sent by Priority Business Mail to get to the Bureaus quickly.
Total amount of QSL cards 20,274
Via M0URX 4,403
Via M0OXO 12,499
Via M0SDV 2,537
Via MD0CCE 61
Via G0RPA 463
Via G4IRN 52
Via YO6DDF 259
Total Weight 77.747g (gross weight includes packaging)
It is time once again to send our outgoing QSL bureau service to the IARU Bureaus. So what exactly does that mean and what is involved?
Since our last bureau dispatch in September 2017, we have received several thousand bureau requests on our Online QSL Request System, and received an incoming bureau dispatch from the RSGB. All cards have been processed and placed in Bureau boxes ready for the next mailing.
We can also send your outgoing bureau cards too! I have received a number of packages from hams to post with our mailing.
Here at the United Radio QSL Bureau we do not believe that bureau means slow! No it doesn’t. The IARU Bureaus for each national society process the bureau cards and send the cards to their members. The UR QSL Bureau uses a product called “M-Bag” it is for Print Media only, but gives a significant discount on parcel prices. It is significant that the Air Mail Priority M-Bag service is only a dollar or so more expensive than surface mail bag, this means that we can get our mailing to the IARU Bureaus in less than 7 days as apposed to up to 12 weeks using surface mail.
M-Bag service is available from many cuntries and is the cheapest way to ship large quantities of QSL cards internationally.
Since 2010 we have sent over a quarter of a million bureau QSL cards, many of the bureaus report back to us when they receive our package which we very much appreciate and encourage, we know that the bureaus sort and process our cards very quickly with the Ukraine bureau doing quite an amazing job every time with the first reports of cards delivered to the recipient hams. It can only take 3 weeks to get those cards delivered from the date they leave us here in the UK. Bulgaria, Russian Federation and Austria also come high on our fast service list. If you get a fast bureau card from us then please drop me an email.
So, stocked up with cardboard boxes, rolls of packing tape, customs labels & mail bags we hope you will soon be receiving the bureau cards through your bureau dispatches.
You can also support our QSL Bureau work by posting us your old out of date IRCs. We can sell them and use the money to fund the bureau costs. You can also donate using PayPal when you make a bureau request.
Thank you to all the donations of IRCs already received, you can see a list by clicking on the link.
Last QSO in Log: When using OQRS you can always see on the Log Search page:
Last QSO in the log: 28 Jan 2018 13:59 UTC
So if your QSO is AFTER the last QSO in log you must wait for the next log update!
Not in log?: If your QSO is BEFORE the “last QSO in log” date and is missing, use the blue button “Not in log” here you can fill in the details of the missing QSO and this will be sent to my work queue.
Please do not send me emails about busted calls. Please use the “Busted Call Centre” on OQRS! Thank you.
5B4AGN, Bob, reports that he will again be QRV as ZC4A from January 24 – 31.
Plans are to be QRV on 1.8 through 28 MHz, mostly on CW with some SSB and Data activity. They will have two or three stations (Elecraft K3s with amplifiers) active using mostly verticals.
QSL via OQRS to M0URX. Please do not send any cards through the bureau. Only use OQRS
The ZC4A Team members are:
5B4AFM Stavros, 5B4AGN Bob, G3AB Andy, G3WPH Mike, G3XTT Don and G6MC Neil.
A new QSL card will be designed for this activity.
UPDATE 03/02/2018 ZC4A CQWW-160m contest log now added to OQRS. If you have already made a DIRECT OQRS and need the 160m Q added? please email me QSO details. Bureau? Please just add the 160m Q to your existing request on OQRS. A new QSL card will be designed soon…
United Radio QSL Bureau is looking for those old out of date International Reply Coupons. Do you have any? You may have some of the recent ones that expired on 31/12/2017 or you may have some really old yellow IRCs?
Please do not throw them away but instead you are welcome to donate them to us for our Outgoing QSL Bureau dispatches. This will help us keep posting your bureau cards and keep the service free for you for the future.
PJ4V will be the call sign used by a team of five operators in Bonaire for the CQ-WPX SSB contest in March.
DK6SP Philipp, M0SDV Jamie, PJ4DX Steve, PJ4KY Bert and PJ4NX Peter will be manning the stations.
For many of you requesting QSL cards using OQRS is still a bit of a mystery. So today i will try to take you through some stages of the OQRS to help and guide you through.
1) Log search page. – Firstly you will see in red bold text the “Last QSO in the Log” date and time. If your QSO is after that time you must wait for the next log update.
If your QSO is before that time but does not appear in the log, then click on the blue box that says “Not in log?” This will take you to our Not in log page where you can enter the QSO details and this will be sent to my work desk for checking. Please do NOT send me emails as the only way we can respond is if you use our system correctly.
To request the QSOs with the geen ticks, click on the blue box “Request QSL(OQRS)”
2) QSL Request Page – On the right hand side of the check boxes you will see the status of the QSL request written in green. Here you can see that the LoTW upload has been completed and that a Direct QSL has been sent.
If you have previously been sent a Bureau QSL for that QSO we will NOT send another.
Please only request ONCE for Bureau. If you lost the QSL or you failed to collect from the Bureau then please use Direct QSL route.
To request your QSO just tick the check box and enter the date and time and proceed to Step 2.
3) QSL Step 2.
Enter and confirm your email address so that i can email you if there is any problem.
“Your QSL Manager (If any)” This box should remain empty if you DO NOT HAVE a QSL manager.
Please do NOT write anything else in this Box.
DO not write any email in this box.
This box is to route your QSL to your QSL manager if you have one. If you are member of DARC you can enter your DOK number here.
Please remember you can ALWAYS check back on the Log Search page to see the status of your QSL request. Which will either be “In Queue” or “Sent” or blank if not requested.
When you have requested your QSL on OQRS, it is very important that YOU DO NOT send a paper Bureau QSL. You should always mark your log accordingly as QSL requested so that when your QSL arrives you do not send out another QSL request. It is very important to use the Bureau responsibly. Bureau is NOT free it does cost an enormous amount of money so your help in using OQRS correctly is a big step to reducing bureau costs. Thank you.
