Hawaii QSO Party and DX

It started raining Saturday Afternoon so that gave Me an excuse to stop work outside and play in the shack. The Hawaii QSO Party was this weekend and I was able to contact stations on 20m,15m and 10m. Some were nice and loud and others not so much! I did find it very nice to contact so many Hawaiian stations in such a short time and all of them finished the contact with- aloha!! Sweet!
  I also spent some time updating My HRD logbook with info from QRZ.com manually since I still have not spent money to have access to the auto updating. During this process I found a contact I marked wrong as Spain-- actually is Balearic Island for another DXCC contact upping My total to 95 DXCC unconfirmed. I also had time to peruse the bands and was lucky enough to have a contact with J88CG on St. Vincent for DXCC #96. He's a direct QSL only so I might not have a confirmation without added work. All in all a fun day of radio!
  73---Tim

The Bureau

Years ago when I was in High School, I was a part of the CB radio craze. I had a base station and mobile in the car and dreamed of far away contacts. . I was in a  Art/printing class and I designed and printed My own CB QSL cards-- this of course was long before personnel computers so it was quite an endeavour.
  Jump forward many years to My first Ham Radio license and My VHF/UHF technician privledges. This was just as the codeless tech license became available in 1992. ( think it was '92?). I actually had QSL cards arriving from My contacts on 6m and 2m. Wow--so I sent away and had some printed and started direct mailing these.
  Eventually I recieved HF priveledges and suddenly the DX world opened up to Me. Several Hams suggested becoming a member of EQSL and ARRL's Logbook of the World. I've been an ARRL member for many years so LOTW was a no brainer! EQSL also turned out to be a real nice electronic QSL service-- both of these are being used by many HAMs world wide.These seemed to be the easiest and cheapest QSL and contact verification and I didn't anticipate needing any other service.
  I occasionly had QSL cards mailed to Me direct and would promptly send one back. Then I started contesting and after winning several certificates, I started  to somewhat activily chase  award programs from the ARRL. It wasn't long before I realized that as good as LOTW is in verifying contacts ,I was still missing many DX entities because they did not use LOTW. Fact is  outside of contesting, sometimes I didn't even try for a contact upon reading in QRZ this Ham only QSLed Direct or Buro( bureau).
  Well I finally decided to check into the Bureau QSL service offered from ARRL and the W0 bureau. Turns out both services are fairly simple to start. I was advised by another Ham to first email My respective "sorter" from the W0 Bureau to see if I have any QSLs waiting for Me. This would help to know how much supplies I would need to start.. They have a website- www.zeroburo.org and the information is very good. The zero bureau is split into sorters for all the letters after the numeral part of Your callsign. Mine of course is "U" so I emailed the "U" sorter and several days later had a reply indicating I have cards waiting for Me.I next chose the amount of money to send according to the expected cards per quarter. I filled out an order form and was a little generous and sent $10.00 anticipating 12-60 cards per quarter. They will send Me cards every quarter ( 3 months) if I have accumalated more than 6 QSL's. Otherwise they will be held until the next quarter. Thus is one of the many reasons cards sent thru the bureau can take years to find their way home! :))
It does appear the different call areas each have a slightly different protocol so read the instructions carefully.Your service of course will depend on your call area and can be found on the ARRL website which gives the address for the respective websites.
    So thats the "incoming" QSL bureau and I now needed to setup My "outgoing" QSL's. The ARRL has a nice Outgoing QSL Service for members and has a pricing structure similiar to the incoming bureau's. They also have a detailed explanation on how to start, what DXCC's they cannot send to and other information. I filled out about 30 QSL's- some actually "via" a QSL manager either in the USA or not, others direct to the DXCC callsign. I sorted them according to the instructions, included proof of ARRL membership and added a check to cover the number of cards and put it into an envelope and sent it to ARRL headquarters with the proper address.
  Sounds complicated. It really wasn't too bad. Now I can anticipate receiving cards from the "buro" and never again need to hesitate when I see "direct or buro only" next to someone's call sign!
 There is also a program to verify these QSL cards for direct credit to DXCC and LOTW. After I navigate that maze I'll post the results. Happy DXing!!
 73---Tim

 

HK0NA QSL

Nice EQSL card from Malpelo Island Dxpedition HK0NA. They uploaded to both EQSL and LOTW.
 Very well done Expedition and nice Website!
  73---Tim

2o12L Customer service

Customer service is rather "tongue in cheek" since I believe all the operators associated with the 2o12L and 2o12W stations are volunteers so that makes My experience even more amazing! The last post I was very happy with My good luck contacting both London Olympic special event stations and the next day I checked the Online logs to check and see if I had been logged. I noticed they were being updated on a regular basis and sure enough there I was on the 2o12W log but I wasn't logged on either 15m or 20m for 2o12L.  I checked back later and even though it said the update had been uploaded since My log time-I still wasn't there!
  I checked the next day and next morning and still wasn't in the log! Bummer- Back to work the next day to My regular schedule so My chances for another contact would diminish greatly! I did see on the 2o12L website a contact email so I thought -what the heck and explained My situation and sent it. I didn't expect an answer for maybe days thinking it wasn't a high priority situation, but within 10 minutes I had a reply from Dave G4BUO, the HF Manager who said -yes they have been having some online log issues but would be trying another upload later today! Wow!! Talk about good service! Later both My contacts appeared in the log so I'm all set!
  My experience with this special event station was great as was the overall Olympics. Thanks "Great Britain" for a job well done!
  Don't know what I'll watch on Television now though .........
 73---Tim

Good Timing

In the last post I mentioned My bad timing with band conditions and missing attempts to contact the Special 2012 Olympic stations. Well that changed for Me on Saturday Afternoon when I happened to be in the shack tuning thru the bands and heard a station call CQ on 15m. I didn't hear their call sign but stopped to listen but as fast as they started they stopped. Not hearing much else on, I stayed on frequency and proceeded to check emails ,but again a station came on frequency,tuned and started calling. Two,oscar,one,two,london calling CQ- wow. Talk about luck! I gave my call,noticing the SWR was higher than normal because I hadn't tuned up yet, but 2012L came back to Me with a S7 and I gave My exchange and they were in the log!
  Next I rechecked the Dx Cluster and noticed 2o12W-- the Wales Olympic special event was also on 15m at 21.325mhz . Quickly I tuned up there and the pile-up was not too bad and they were in the log 3 minutes later!What luck!! Both using 100w into My ground mounted butternut vertical. Later I was also able to contact 2o12L again on 20m . I later tried 17m but could not break the pile-up. I'm still very pleased. The olympic stations will be actice thru the early part of September with the para-olympics so there is still more chances!
73--Tim

Interesting Week

This has been an interesting week ,although not much on the Ham radio side. I did play for a VERY  short time in last weeks 10-10 contest. I had some difficulty using the new logging program but it was strictly operator issues. Band conditions in the far north have been less than stellar. I half heartedly tried to contact CY9M,TO2D and the several Olympic stations but no luck. I can blame some on band conditions and also bad timing on My part. I'm presently watching the clusters for D64K, but not much Midwest activity yet.
  I did receive a tweet from DX World which indicated Malpelo Island- HK0NA had uploaded logs to LOTW and sure enough-- I now have added them confirmed as DXCC # 73 . It also makes 93 different DXCC's worked . Maybe a few more will trickle in to LOTW to add to the totals!
 This last week I found time to replace My 25 year old Garage door opener which had died. I plan to repair it and reinstall on My pole building but really needed the garage opener working for My family now. We also had two evenings with extended power outages which always makes Us mindful of the need for electricity for everything. We bought a few LED lanterns and I moved My good UPS to the upstairs to support Our DSL modem and Family PC. Next Power outage We will at least have Internet access .
  Our family also found time to go to the neighborhood Night out on Tuesday. A real good idea for meeting neighbors and finding out about the Township business We don't always hear about!
  Last evening We lost one of our Sicilian Buttercup chickens to a predator-- Sad!! Now we only have 5 birds left! They are now also under house arrest- -confined to the coop and fenced in run area. When we let them free range now it'll only be under Our direct supervision!!

73---Tim

DXCC # 72

I just noticed on My LOTW another DXCC was just confirmed to bring My total to 72 of 92 I've actually worked. This one was from 4/16/2011 -- India, VU2PAI. Glad to have another one. Contest season should again help the totals.
  I also am gaining on WAS and the new CQ WPX award program shows WPX Mixed I'm at 365 of 400 needed for an award and WPX SSB at 241 of 300 needed and WPX Digital I'm at 220 of 300. Another paper chasing award but its fun to see how close I am to more wallpaper!!
  73---Tim

This was also My 200th blog post! Been plugging away since 2009--yippee!

10-10 logging program

I hope to participate in this upcoming 10-10 Summer Qso contest but I realized My usual logging programs don't support these contests. Several paid programs have 10-10 support but I really can't justify buying a full blown program because of one type of contest. Doing a search revealed Genlog325 by Dave Mascaro. Its freeware ( although a donation is accepted) and supports not only the 10-10  family of contests but many more. It is simple with no CAT control of PC or rotors,does have PTT and keyer functionality, but seems perfect for My contest needs at the moment. Its a little over 6 meg of download and installed with no hiccups. I was able to easily set it up for testing data entry and contest type. I will continue to use N1MM as my usual contest logging program but I think this one will fill the gaps rather nicely!
73--Tim

Thanks to W3KM for a nice program and My "borrowing" his logo above for My blog!!

Happens in threes!

Have You heard the saying " happens in threes" meaning good and bad things? Well lately the bad thing to happen was  the Window Air conditioner needed replacing, then last night Our microwave Oven quit working. Then today after work I noticed the garage door was only open half-way. Yup -you guessed it-- door opener died!
  The good threes came in the mail-- received My 10-10 International certificate and was about to throw away the envelope when I realized there was more inside. I also received the cloth 10-10 patch and member wallet card-- three good! :)
  HF bands have been very poor up in the far north and now CY9M St. Pauls Island Dxpedition is QRT and no contacts for Me-bummer.Also trying for TO2D -Saint Barthelemy but conditions need to improve which I don't see happpening soon.
 73---Tim