Category - Blog

If you need 9M6 on topband, John, 9M6XRO and Steve 9M6DXX are planning a weekend low-band operation from a coastal site in East Malaysia before the end of February. Steve will do 80m SSB (and probably higher bands during the day) while John will do CW, including 160m. I’ll put an anonuncement on the “Blog” when we have a date fixed.
(This will be from mainland Borneo, IOTA OC-088, not Labuan OC-133.) 73 Steve 9M6DXX

I received an email today (January 21st) from John 9M6XRO he reports
“Well we have just had a BIG thunderstorm here and I think the apartment building was probably hit. I had been operating on 40m though a torrential downpour with thunder and lightning in the vicinity. I decided to tell the pile-up ‘thunderstorm’ and went QRT. The lightning moved closer and the lights went out. I had just walked out of the shack into the lounge and suddenly the walls seemed to be crackling and I had a buzzing noise in my ears then “Kerash” lighning bolt and thunder simultaneously, and car alarms going off all round. I thought there was no way my front ends could survive that – all the ants were connected to the Quadra because I never unplug them. We just now got the power back and incredibly everything seems to be working OK according to the SWR on the HF2 and the Quad!

The tower on the roof has a very heavy earth strap running all the way down the side of the building then underground and all I can think of is that it might have taken the strike. I will take a good look round in the morning in daylight and see if there is any evidence of just what was hit!”

Ed – Pheww glad you got through that one safely John!

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A frustrating few days for me, the desk cleared of all incoming QSL cards and some time over last weekend to work a “new one” Palestine E44M, but despite hours of tactical calling, firing up and down the split frequencies to find where they were taking most calls and trying to find a clear window in which to be heard from my small station in Middle England. It just wasn’t to be, the pile ups were huge. I have to say I think it was quite a brave decision to go to Palestine at a time when Israel are at war in the Gaza Strip. I guess for this reason the wire antennas that are being used seem rather low which would account for the low signals that I was hearing. One main problem for me was that Italy are a very good hop away from E4 and were always going to be a 5/9 both ways for our Italian Amateurs, it was going to be a game of patience, in fact on two occasions both on 20m and 17m after waiting for the “E44M listening up 5 to 10” again I replied… “Mike Zero Uniform Romeo X-ray” I heard “URX again” so I gave my call but on both occasions my calls weren’t heard and an Italian had called over me to get that elusive log entry.

Despondent but NOT beaten I realised that my chance was gone as I had a busy week at work coming up and I knew by the time I got home the band conditions would be dropping out.

Tuesday 14:44z: Home from work and my luck changed, E44M, weak but workable on 14.250 MHz, and few people were calling I called but they can’t hear me, I scan the split, where are they listening?… yes, here on 14.259 and they finally heard me. That magical reply “M0URX 5/9” Phew at last I made it, at least on one band! DXCC No 272 worked.

See their website for latest news, logs and forums: http://www.dxcoffee.com/e44m/

Happy New Year to everyone and may 2009 bring lots of happiness and lots of DX for us all. The last two weeks have been very busy in the Bureau office, between the family get togethers there has been a large amount of QSL work in progress. 3,000 QSL cards are now boxed up ready for posting to the RSGB QSL Bureau.
Max ON5UR has designed the new XU7XRO QSL card which will be ready for you by the end of the month.

As many of you know I am a Sub Manager for the RSGB QSL Bureau, for the G4Dxx and G4Rxx.

One problem that all Sub managers have is being able to communicate with all the Radio Amateurs under their wing so I have decided to write a general blog that is not just for the Amateurs that I manage, but for all licenced Radio Amateurs wherever you are.

It is very important to know WHO your Sub Manager is if you are a UK Ham you can go to the RSGB Website http://www.rsgb.org

Members can enter the “Members Area” to view the up to date list of Sub managers. If you are not a member of the RSGB.. (why not?) but you are a UK Ham then you can email me and I can find out who is your sub manager.

Make sure that your Sub manager has correctly stamped and addressed envelopes so that they can keep posting you your cards as they come through. Remember even NON members can receive cards.

“I’m not interested in QSL’ing” is one comment I hear all too often, well tell your sub manager that you do not wish to receive QSL cards so that the RSGB can deal with them appropriately. Remember YOU might not want the QSL cards but SOMEONE wants yours that is why the cards are waiting for you. QSL’ing is part of the hobby and many people enjoy chasing awards so if you don’t want QSL cards may I suggest you write on your QRZ.com profile a line saying “I do not collect QSL cards but if you require a QSL card please email me and I will send one Via the Bureau”

This leads onto QRZ.com, I can’t stress how important it is to KEEP your profile updated, I often need to email Amateurs only to find out that they have not updated their email address or their postal address and quite often I see in the RSGB yearbook “details withheld” so when I do need to get hold of a radio amateur to let them know about cards waiting I am not able to do so.

I have 1,000 cards held for G4Dxx and G4Rxx, and I am just one of 80 UK Sub managers that could mean 80,000 QSL cards that Sub managers can’t get to the owners. So please if you are reading this and you are a UK Radio Amateur, please keep your RSGB Sub Manager updated with envelopes, stamps and instructions to your QSL routing. It may not be important to you but it will help all the Sub Managers keep the workload down and to keep the Amateurs for their section happy.

Over Christmas I have received some photographs from John 9M6XRO from his trip to Cambodia as XU7XRO here are two of the images. I will be printing the new QSL card in January and using the old stock for Bureau cards.
John reports that band conditions were great but he had also to do some work on the station in XU7 but did manage to work on 80m and 160m. 

Do you remember when you were just 12 years of age? And your mum & dad gave you your first crystal set for Christmas? No? Well I don’t either but it sets the scene for my Blog entry today.

Earlier this year I replaced my second (reserve) radio with a new one. (I won a Yaesu FT-897, thanks to Yaesu and Chiltern DX Club) The FT-100 had been a great radio for me and was given to me by a radio amateur in Japan as a gift on a visit in 2003 so I was not going to sell the radio but instead I decided it would be a great idea to give this HF / VHF / UHF Transceiver to a young radio operator coming into the hobby that showed great potential and passion for the hobby.

We all know how expensive this hobby can be, and when you first get licensed there is so much equipment you need and want to get your hands on. But when you are just 12 years old money can be a bit of a problem. United Radio QSL Management Bureau have decided to “elmer” a young radio ham called Aidan from Birmingham England to encourage, help and advise this young chap through his introductory time into Amateur Radio. He loves contesting and DX’ing and has just passed the UK’s Foundation Exam.

Aidan has been a Scout at the Dorridge Scout Group and when Scout Leader Callum M0MCX introduced the scouts to Amateur Radio Aidan was always there to help out with the contests and showed huge enthusiasm for this wonderful hobby of Amateur Radio. Over the coming months I will Blog Aidan’s progress in the hobby.

On passing the Foundation Exam I presented Aidan with a Christmas present for him to open…. Wow what a great surprise that was to Aidan:
Yaesu FT-100 Transceiver
Yaesu FC-20 Auto ATU
Comet H-422 Dipole Antenna

So my message to you for Christmas is think about the future of our hobby, try to “Elmer” / mentor a new ham and  help and guide them into the hobby. The future is in your hands.
Merry Christmas to you all and thanks for all your emails and comments received this year. 73 de Tim M0URX

I was delighted to receive the QSL card today from JD1BMM. Number 266 Confirmed!
JA6GXK will be active again as JD1BMM from Minami-Torishima (OC-073) from 23 December to 6 January. He will operate in his spare time on all bands and modes with 500 watts and a focus on the low bands. QSL via JD1BMM, direct (Masafumi Ishihara, 2-305 Loran, 2-5-35 Miyazaki, Chuo-ku, Chiba, 260-0806 Japan) or through the JARL Bureau. Info from 425 DX News. 

I received an interesting letter along with my QSL card from Monk Apollo SV2ASP/A Mount Athos.
Dear friends,

I would like to ask for your help in a problem that I confront. Recently, in the new regulations made by the Greek Ministry of Communications gave the SY prefix to Special call to anyone who wants it. Sadly the men at the Ministry do not understand the importance of the DXCC – Entity Mount Athos to the World of Amateur Radio.

Monk Apollo invites you to send an email to the Ministry [email protected]  and ask them to reserve the prefix SY solely for the use of Mount Athos to eliminate any confusion of the DXCC Entity Mount Athos.

Thanks in advance for your assistance, from Mount Athos, the “Garden of Virgin Mary” I send you my best wishes. God Bless you – Monk Apollo.

(Ed – But will Monk Apollo ALLOW a DXpedition from an outside team?)