Here is the busy M0URX shack.
Category - Blog
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.
The new version of the Bespoke OQRS is now on line and there are quite a lot of changes. Many are cosmetic, adding a bit of colour and others are more practical. I will post a longer description later but two of the main changes;
1) OQRS now allows ”live logging” by Dxpeditions providing they have a stable Internet connection and are using N1MM.
2) After a log search you will see that we will no longer accept email and social media requests for Missing Call requests. This is a practical change and indeed a safer way to ensure all busted calls are traceable and more important, that none are missed by being sent on many different social media platforms.
Social Media requests need to be discouraged.
By using the Log Check Request Form for missing Q’s this also helps me identify any serious log issues that i need to report to the DX team.
Thanks, hope you enjoy the new version which you will catch on both M0URX and M0OXO OQRS sites…..
Members of the NB-DX Team from Belgium will be QRV as HB0/ON4ANN
From September 22-28. Team members include ON4ANN, ON4CCV, ON5PDV, ON2BDJ, ON4CKM and ON6MI.
The operators may also do some WWFF activity as HB0/ON4CCV/P and HB0/ON4CKM/P.
QSL via M0URX OQRS
Following on from their 2017 operation the CanAm DX Group is pleased to announce that they have added an additional team member, K4UEE, Bob Allphin, to their upcoming trip to Austral Islands. The licence for their call sign TX5T has arrived
The team will arrive on Raivavae Island IOTA Ref:OC-114 on August 13 and staying through August 22.
Plans are to have three stations on 40-6 meters on CW, SSB, RTTY and FT8.
The Australs are number 71 on the Most Wanted List on Club Log. The team may try 80/160 but given summertime conditions in the Northern Hemisphere.
Please visit the web site for more information:
There will be a new QSL card printed after the DXpedition. The QSL shown above is from the 2017 operation.
QSL Via M0URX OQRS:
The Final log has been uploaded to OQRS and LoTW. A further 400 FT8 QSOs have been recovered and are now on OQRS and uploaded to LoTW.
Max ON5UR will be operating from Kosovo between 20th – 30th September 2018. Max has received the licence from ARKEP and will be QRV as Z68UR
