Category - Blog

You may remember I invited Ofcom (Office of Communications) to investigate some local QRM giving me major grief on the Amateur Bands, well the TV Masthead Preamp PSU on the house at the end of the street has now been replaced, and the drifting noise on 15m now has gone… BUT.. I quickly realised that was not the main cause. I invited Ofcom back and asked them to investigate further as I still have total wipe out S9+20 on all bands about 3 hours every evening.
Ofcom now require a test done to make sure that the interference is 6db higher than the noise floor before they can take the case on. Not easy as the noise is in the evening and Ofcom work 9-5. Luckily during the day there are sprogs on 20m and various other parts of the HF spectrum for the guys to test. Happy that i have a case they went away to DF the little sprog. Got him! A Plasma TV a few doors away! Oh no!

The field engineer comes back to tell me the bad news, however he says that the first stage is to encourage the owner to compliance. Also his Office will send out further equipment to test the field strength of the Plasma TV to prove that it exceeds regulations. He says that if asking the owner to comply does not work then they will take the action of enforcement if it is required.

On a plus side the owner of the Plasma says that they are moving house at the end of April! Bonus!!! But the Ofcom engineer says that the case will stay live even when they move as the equipment MUST be repaired or replaced.

For the last 6 years i have had a noise on 15m that is 25KHz wide and various sprogs of the noise on other HF Amateur bands. I have been reluctant to try to resolve the problem as I was not happy confronting neighbours when I found the problem. During the evenings when the unit is switched on it has been S9 on all Amateur Bands but when on stand by only sprogs up and down the bands.

I decided that I would contact Ofcom using the Spectrum Abuse form on their website. Within a few days I had a telephone call to discuss the problem and the man from the ministry said that he would pass it on to the Field Engineers in my area. A week later the engineer telephoned to arrange an appointment. That was today, armed with DF antenna the men went on a mission up the street. About 1 hour later they came back and told me that they had found the problem a faulty PSU on a TV masthead preamp. The owner was co-operative although confused as to why it was a problem, saying “Well it doesn’t bother us!” They have agreed to have the unit replaced. Ofcom say they will follow the visit up with a letter to the owner of the equipment and make sure that a fix date is arranged. Although they can’t tell the person to switch it off, so the noise is still there. I should see an end to this problem soon, so I can once again enjoy Amateur Radio from my shack. Thank you Ofcom!

Although Turkmenistan has not been on the Amateur Radio radar for some time now I was surprised to see a letter this morning from the EZ QSL Bureau PO Box 555 Asgabat 744020 TURKMENISTAN. The letter contained SWL cards from EZ8CW using his SWL call sign EZ8-001.

It would be nice one day soon to welcome them back to the World of Amateur Radio! If only! So I just want us to remember our Amateur Radio friends in Turkmenistan, currently Amateur Radio is not permitted in the country but the Radio Amateurs remain dedicated to the hobby as SWL. If you are in Turkmenistan please let me know how the Ham community is continuing in the hobby. 

I have received some great images for the P29CS QSL which is going to be a 4 sided card. The QSL will be designed as usual by ON5UR Max.

This weekend I really enjoyed some real great DX, but the operating of some Amateurs is quite unbelievable, quite shocking and in some cases quite disgusting. Something must be done! Well in an attempt to shock some of the operators concerned and make them realize that this is NOT the way to operate, some friends have set up a website called “Lids On The Air” with audio recordings of some really dreadful operating. Please visit the site let us see if we can learn from this!

After the investigations reagarding the RSGB Outgoing Bureau Don Field has sent me the following Report. This really is great news that we all welcome. Thank you Don. Let’s hope that we now have this matter resolved.

RSGB QSL Bureau Status Report

Over the past couple of months the Society has received correspondence and questions from a number of amateurs whose outgoing bureau cards do not appear to have reached the overseas bureaux for which they were intended. Checks with some of the key overseas bureaux suggested that it had been many months since they had received cards from the RSGB.

Alerted to this situation, the General Manager and members of the Board undertook their own investigations, including a personal visit by the General Manager to the RSGB QSL Bureau, currently managed under contract by Richard Constantine G3UGF.

It is apparent that Richard has been on a steep learning curve since taking on the bureau and his early focus was on fixing some longstanding issues with the sub-manager network, and the distribution of incoming cards.

With regard to outgoing cards, shipping costs, at the start of the year had already begun to rise sharply. Costs outside the EU began to rise more than could have been reasonably predicted, due to the worsening economic situation. This could not have occurred at a more inopportune time, when the bureau was turning its attention to building up the overseas distribution. By the first quarter costs had risen 25%, with no sign of slowing, and the Board was made aware of concerns. The bureau’s main provider pulled out of several destinations, including America, Russia and other ex-Soviet destinations, also increasing costs to Europe and the Pacific Rim. In the second and third quarters the bureau had to use several different companies and routes, including costly personal air mail, shopping around for each dispatch, in order to maintain service , whilst trying to find another long-term partner, prepared to offer trade distribution rates.

This proved to be an extremely frustrating period as all carriers appeared reluctant to take on new business and prices changed per shipment, against the value of the pound. Increasing the average weight to popular destinations, from 10kg to 25 kg, brought some short term cost savings, but did not resolve the issue.

However, even with additional sorters it became apparent that whilst the bureau’s remit is not to be the quickest way to send a QSL card, only the most cost effective, that increasing the package size to gain a cost saving would not ultimately meet some user expectations and that delays would continue.

It also brought the bureau into conflict with Customs in certain countries as they refused to accept large shipments as non-commercial, printed paper, imposing customs charges. Fortunately, by the last quarter, it was possible to find another provider, capable of distributing to all IARU destinations. Costs were significantly reduced and volumes began to increase in the final quarter and have continued into the New Year. The bureau is now more positive that it can continue to stay within its budget, having shipped approximately 400,000 cards by weight, over the last year. This being 25% down on its own internal projection. The position has been recovered and provided that there are no more shocks to come in the wider economy, there is now a stable platform on which to build in 2010.

More importantly for RSGB QSL Bureau users, Richard has agreed to produce a monthly report for RadCom, starting in the April edition, covering RSGB QSL Bureau and listing recent shipments.

The Society regrets any problems with the bureau, whether real or perceived. While the RSGB QSL Bureau is no substitute for direct mail, it is a valuable membership benefit to many. It should be emphasised, incidentally, that intra-UK cards have been flowing freely throughout. It is unfortunate that there continue to be some abuses of the Bureau, for example by members sending cards on behalf of overseas friends who are not members. Indiscriminate QSLing by some contest groups and special event stations have also served to slow down the overall flow of cards.

Any questions relating to the RSGB QSL Bureau should be emailed to Richard at [email protected] but it is hoped that the regular bulletins in RadCom will help to reduce his correspondence and give him and his team more time for getting those cards through.