100th Anniversary of the Royal Australian Air Force

8 January 2021

Lee Moyle VK3GK, Vice President of the WIA, has been helping secure 2 special amateur radio call signs from the ACMA.

VI 100 AF and VK 100 AF.

Many would be aware that this year, 2021 is the 100th Anniversary of the Royal Australian Air Force hence these 2 calls to be used for the celebrations,  VI 100 AF and VK 100 AF.

VI100AF will be on air 1 March – 29 May, 100 days (the Air Force’s actual Birthday is March 31)
VK100AF will be on air 1 March – 31 August 2021.

The special event call signs will be issued to amateurs from around Australia on a roster and the WIA have authorised Stuart VK8NSB, to manage both calls.

VK8NSB is interested to hear from any amateurs, particularly those who have an association with the ADF who would be interested in using the event call signs at your home, club or portable location on a SOTA or Park activity all to help celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the RAAF  Please email Stuart on [email protected]

Direct: QSL $2 Via M0URX
Bureau: Please only use OQRS. No Bureau route for incoming Bureau

Incoming Bureau December 2020

26 December 2020

1,100 Incoming Bureau cards arrived from the RSGB Bureau on December 24th 2020.

I am still having difficulty in getting this message to DL, JA, F and EA radio amateurs, that you must NOT send cards through the bureau for DXpeditions, SES or Contest Qs, or for ANY call sign that is not an RSGB member. Instead you must use OQRS as explained in the QSL policy for all DXpeditions.
Also, another problem coming from these countries is that they are then sending a second QSL through bureau to say “TNX QSL” You must not do this. Please use OQRS and correctly mark your log as QSL SENT so that you DO NOT send a QSL to DXpeditions. They are NOT needed, and cause extra costs and slows down the bureau system.
Worse are those that use OQRS, but then send a Bureau QSL and then send another Bureau QSL every month until they send a Direct QSL because the Bureau card still has not arrived. Bureau will take up to 3 years. Please understand this! As many JAs & DLs send one QSL per QSO this can lead to up 60 follow up QSL’s being received here for each DX call from 1 station.
Please USE OQRS! Thank you

5Z4VJ 100k QSOs!

19 November 2020
A Tweet on Twitter from Andy G3AB:
“Hit the 100k QSO mark from Kenya a few days ago (since Nov 2019).  QSO #100,000 was LY3EC on 15 Nov 2020. 15M SSB.   73 de 5Z4VJ  (ex 5Z4/G3AB)
Many thanks to Tim @m0urx for all his hard work handling the QSL requests.”

Well done Andy a huge milestone of 100,000 QSO’s in 1 year of solo operation from Nairobi, Kenya.

How to search the log?

10 November 2020

With hundreds of DX logs and millions of QSOs in the database, managing inquiries are all handled directly through The Bespoke OQRS. Please do not send emails, or screenshots or attachments of any kind, i do not accept them. Instead search the log for your call sign and there you will see a “NOT IN LOG?” button. If you cannot find your QSO in the log fill in the form as required; this will send your inquiry to my work queue for investigation. I can open up a selection of the database to search for errors, this is much quicker. I will then send you an update directly from OQRS whatever the answer is.

When searching for your QSO in the log search please also check the Last QSO in the log: in red above the log search:
“Last QSO in the log: 15 Nov 2020 23:57 UTC” If your QSO is after the Last QSO then you must WAIT, yes WAIT for the log update.
DO NOT USE “NOT IN LOG?” button for QSOs that are AFTER Last QSO in log. WAIT.

It seems that so many people are not capable of reading!!!

It is also very important that you “BACK-UP your logs!” To protect the integrity of logs under our care, we will not provide any QSO data.

All your questions are answered on this website. Please use it and only email if you are not able to find the answer to your question.

Keeping You Posted!

31 October 2020

Tim Beaumont M0URX –  QSL Manager & Mailing Consultant  –  caters of all your QSL requirements from Holiday station, IOTA to major DX’pedition status.
Here at United Radio QSL Bureau “Keeping you posted!” is my priority and this website is my tool to do exactly that. If you have any inquiries the chance is that you will find the answer on the Blog. You can use the “search bar” to put in key words to search the website for the answer to your question.

Here you will find The Bespoke OQRS & Log Search and hints and tips on how to use OQRS for you!
I will post all new QSL designs here on the Blog along with details of significant large mailings. You can also find the dates of previous “World Bureau Mailings” so that you can check if you bureau card is on its way to your local bureau.

United Radio QSL Bureau runs its own OUTGOING QSL Bureau.  Available for ANYONE to use. (See website for more info)
For UK QSL managers – I can provide access to the most competitive postal rates in the industry.
For World Dxpedition teams our Bespoke OQRS:

  • Enables us to handle all your requirements providing Free Direct QSL’s & Express LoTW uploads to your sponsors. 
  • Professional QSL design & printing through a range of tailored levels of support to meet your needs.
  • Security & back up local & cloud data storage ensuring integrity & preservation.
  • Unique global QSL mailing account integration.​

Bespoke OQRS also features “OQRS Configuration” for Direct, Bureau & Express LoTW to the requirements of your Dxpedition.

  • Support for “Missing / Busted Call” inquiries integration with your Log Search. 
  • Statistics including list of Dupes, Operator stats, band, mode, country and much more! 
  • Real Time log search & Band Activity Module

LoTW Uploads

30 October 2020
Just recently I have seen an influx of emails complaining about the fact that I have not uploaded logs to LoTW. 
Can I make this perfectly clear! When a log update arrives here, it is uploaded to LoTW immediately. For DXpedition logs, please check the DXpedition website for the LoTW upload policy.
Please always use OQRS where you will see the “Last QSO date and time”. Wait until log has been updated! Then OQRS uploads to LoTW.
The emails are nearly all from people using third party software to download their LoTW matches usually QRZ log, Club Log or other logging software.  The first place you should check if you find a missing match is to log directly into your LoTW account and check if the QSO is matched, here you can also check if YOU have forgotten to upload the QSO yourself. Nearly all of these issues can be fixed at your end without the need to email me to tell me that I have not done this or that.
The most common cause of a QSO not being matched is by presenting an incorrect UTC time that falls outside the permitted tolerance of LoTW. An example of this mismatch which happens in SSB CW and FT modes under low signal paths where the DX logs you at 16:50z but you incorrectly logged when you started calling at 16:15z instead of the time you actually worked the DX. 
If I have made an error then please drop me a line and I will sort these matters out quickly. Thank you for your understanding.

Welcome to 5Z4PA Martin

14 October 2020

Welcome to United Radio QSL Bureau to 5Z4PA Martin, operating from Mombasa, Kenya.
QSL Cards will be designed & printed soon.

Please QSL via M0URX OQRS

Logs will be uploaded to LoTW.
No Direct QSLs from Kenya.

For Bureau route ONLY use OQRS. Please do not send any Bureau cards.

PJ4TEN QSL Preview

7 October 2020


PJ4TEN is a special event station active during October 2020 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of “10/10/10” – October 10th, 2010. On that date the former country of the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved and Bonaire became a ‘special municipality’ of the Netherlands. As a result, Bonaire became a new DXCC entity on that date. 

PJ4TEN OQRS & Log Search

To mark the 10th anniversary, Bonaire’s radio amateurs are organising a month-long operating event. A PDF award will be available to those who achieve 10 points by making contacts with PJ4 stations during October. 

Rules:
1. A total of 10 points are required.
2. A contact with PJ4TEN is worth 2 points.
3. A contact with any other PJ4 station is worth 1 point.
4. Exception: on the exact anniversary, between 0000UTC and 2359UTC on Saturday October 10th, all PJ4 stations count 2 points.
5. All stations may be worked more than once on different bands and / or modes for additional points. Example: QSOs with PJ4TEN on 14MHz SSB and 7MHz FT8, and with PJ4NX on 14MHz CW and 7MHz FT8, would count a total of 6 points (2+2+1+1). However, if all those QSOs took place on 10/10/20 a total of 8 points would be scored (2+2+2+2).
6. Only contacts made between 0000UTC on October 1st and 2359UTC on October 31st count towards the Bonaire 10/10/10 Award.
7. There is no fee and no QSLs are required.
8. To apply: send a list of contacts made, stating the date, time (UTC), band and mode to: [email protected]
9. The award is also available to SWLs on a ‘heard’ basis. For each contact logged, please list at least two stations with which the PJ4 station was in contact.