Category - Blog
J8NY DXpedition to St Vincent log is now online.
Welcome to PJ4SON Paul and PJ4HOT Jan, from the Caribbean Island of Bonaire, to UR QSL Bureau. Here is the QSL Preview. QSL cards are currently being printed and will be available soon.
Royal Mail has restarted international parcel and letter deliveries almost six weeks after it revealed it had been affected by a ransomware cyber-attack that left it battling to get its international services back up and running. It refused to pay an $80m (£67m) ransom sought by hackers linked to Russia after the “cyber incident”, which resulted in the UK being unable to handle international mail or parcels.
Sorry if your QSL is taking a little longer to arrive just now, but this was the reason which has caused major disruption to Royal Mail International since early January.
Very pleased to show you the QSL Preview for T88WA, Babeldoab Island DXpedition from Palau. QSL designer Max, ON5UR will have the design in the print room on Monday.
T88WA QSL cards and others mailed out on Tuesday 7th February, 2023.
Some cards may be delayed due to a ransomware threat at Royal Mail. I have been informed that the International mail may be delayed to some countries while the hack at Royal Mail is dealt with.
OQRS is still open for the beautiful T88WA QSL.
Merry Christmas to everyone! Best Wishes and great DX for 2023!
With some big DXpeditions coming up i thought this very appropriate!
VP5Y was operated by Tony VE3RZ an Doug VA3DF during the CQ WW CW Contest 2022. Located on Grand Turk Island NA-003.
OQRS open.
A team of five Western Washington DX Club members will activate Palau as T88WA Nov 3-14, 2022. 6m – 160m and CW, SSB, and FT8 modes.
The team will keep the Twitter updates going @T88WA
November 3, 2022 – First of all, a big thank you to DX Engineering for emergency donation and shipping to Palau of an MFJ Ultrasonic RFI device for tracking down RF noise at the Bai near Choll Village where we were going to make our QTH. It was intractable S9 noise across all bands coming from underground cable and telephone wires running all along the island under the power poles.
See our photos on Twitter. New photos coming soon… @T88WA
@T88WA Twitter:
@T88WA Twitter: This evening we arrived for our 23h layover in Guam. One leg of the #JourneyToPalau left tomorrow evening. We were informed that due to the storm, our equipment delivery is delayed to the morning of Nov 3 instead of Nov 2 as previously planned.
Also good news is the benefits of Brexit, we no longer have to pay 20% VAT, shipping cards from one part of the European Union to another, this has saved our QSL work around £1,000 a year since leaving the EU.
However, the World Customs Organisations new regulations means that Bureau QSL boxes are now considered as a “Commodity” and are therefore subject to a customs tax on arrival at the destination country, they are no longer Value “0”. Some Bureaus will not pay the tax and some cards will be destroyed or returned to sender. We are working with IARU Bureaus to try to ensure these cards arrive with the recipients.
I recently discussed this matter of customs tax on Bureau parcels with the President of IARU, Tim Ellam VE6SH while he was at the 2022 RSGB Convention, Tim informed me that he had discussed the matter with the UPU (Universal Postal Union) and there was no way that the IARU could intervene to help resolve the issues.
It is clear that while most of the Bureaus are providing a world class service in supporting their members in their QSL exchanges, some Societies are either no longer financially able to provide the service or are really struggling to meet those costs. Regardless of what many of you believe, the Bureau QSL service is NOT free, the road ahead is uncertain for the Bureau. I urge you if possible, to QSL direct so that you are not disappointed should your bureau QSLs not arrive.