IW5EDI Simone – Ham-Radio

Postage rates increase again.

According to a recent AGCOM news, postal rates for letters will increase starting 1 January 2013.
Local newspapers reports that increase for european postage will increase by 10 cent. From 0.65 euro to 0.75 euro.

Sending QSL via Direct will be therefore more expensive, expecially to sending to Asia and Oceania

I’ve discovered, that for
Zone 2 (America and Africa) postage increase from 1.60 to 2.00 euro.
Zone 3 (rest of the World) incredibly pass from 2.00 euro to 2.50 euro.

In December 2010 , (just 24 months ago) sending a QSL in ZL costed 1 euro, in the States 0,85 and in Europe 0,65.

http://www.iw5edi.com/ham-radio-reference/direct-qsling-from-italy

LoTW delays

As Ham Radio Deluxe user, and faith LotW subscriber, I’ve ever upladed my logs to the ARRL LoTW system.

Since HRD started offering the automati upload / download I’ve enjoyed using this function.

Starting october I’ve noticed a delay on receiving confirmations… and curious of this I’ve logged-in to LoTW page

Since I was using the HRD upload system, it was a log time since my last direct login.

Well, I’ve been surprised to see that my most recent QSO was of late August ! I decided therefore, supposing a bug in HRD to re upload all my logs back again. A message was warning that Queue took 6 days.

A week later I went back to see if my logs where uploaded but , astonished, my most recent QSO was still the same, in august.

I noticed a warning message saying that IT guys found a bug making logs disappear randomly. They explained that cause was because of a non unique key used to rename uploaded logs.

Well, I re-uploaded all my logs, but now after 4 days my latest contact is still the one in August.

Will wait a little bit now to see what’s happen..

A5A Buthan

Is now on air since 6 July A5A DX pedition from Buthan, a DX Pedition managed by JH1AJT, JJ1LIB, KL2A, VR2KF (JH1OGX) and ZL1GO (JA4EKO). QSL will be via JH1AJT

A5A Log Online can be found here , but looks like they will be able to update A5A Log only at the end of the DX Pedition.

A5A can be considered a interesting asiatic dx pedition since it’s ranked #23 Most Wanted in North America… so lot’s of NA Slots are expected.

GD DX

6O0CW Log Online – live

I’ve been in touch with Silvano’s team from 6O0CW DX pedition in Somalia and as like happened for his previous dx peditions , immediatly after the contact my QSO was listed on the official 6O0CW On-Line Log system, pratically live !

QSL for 6O0CW is available via the QSL Request Service !

Fine Job Silvano and congratulations for a so professional approach to DX Peditioning.

50 MHz International Marathon

50 MHz Marathon

ARI Section of Florence organizes the marathon dedicated to the band of 50 MHz which is open all radio amateurs. From this page you can access your online logs for the management of the marathon. To Join, request your personal userID and password by sending an e-mail to maratona50mhz @ gmail.com containing the following data : CALL, Operator Name, WWLocator and the category of participation.
The log function is already working, in order to allow users to test it, but log entries will be cleared at the beginning of the marathon.

New Section for 70 Mhz!

With the introduction of the sperimental period of the 70 Mhz band, ARI sezione di Firenze, created a special section dedicated to this band, inside the the 50Mhz Marathon 2012 edition. The main goal is to collect data of all QSOs done within this band by all radioamateurs taking part to the competition. The final database of QSOs made on the 4 meter band will be collected and sent to the Department of Electrical and Information Engineering of the University of L’Aquila, directed by Piero Tognolatti I0KPT, for further analysis on propagation.
All those who wish to participate in this initiative, should send an e-mail containing the CALL, NAME, the LOCATOR, and a description of their equipment at maratona50mhz @ gmail . com. Login credentials will be sent all partecipants, in order to be able to enter their QSO data or upload an ADIFlog file. All contactswill be grouped in the modes Voice, CW and Digital. In order to give a bit of competitive spirit to the event will be drawn an automatic classification based on the total QRB of each participant.

For Rules and Updated visit the 50 Mhz Marathon web site

500 KHz Beacon by ARI Milano

ARI Milano obrained last october, for temporary period , the permission to operate on the 500 KHz band to develop experiments.

After having obtained such permission, ARI Milano home made a vertical antenna with a capacitive toploading , a Transmitter and a Receiver for that band.

A beacon has been setup with an ERP of 20 mW

This LF Beacon can be received in CW as IQ2MI and is followed by QRSS3 including the locato JN45NL

Tipically during the day the Beacon is turned off, and is turned on only during the night CET.

You can receive the beacon using a QRSS software like ARGO or other Weak Signal software

More info on this beacon can read at IQ2MI Beacon Page

LoTW and Contestia mode

I was uploading the latest LoTW entries to ARRL LoTW today, and the TQSL application found errors on validating some QSOs done in Contestia mode.
Looks like the Contestia mode is not recognized by ARRL !

I solved the problem by editing the ADIF file and changing the contestia record with DATA

Hope this can help

5V7TT DX with the Ghost ?

a Ghost in the 5V7TT Team ?

Today I finally had the opportunity to contact the 5V7TT DXPedition to Togo. This activation has been managed by I2YSB, an experienced dxer, who knows all tips and tricks of dxpeditioning, and from what I’m seing looks like are really making a fine job and tons of QSOs.

It is said that the team is able to be present in 8 bands and modes at the same time even if officially the team is composed by 7 operators !!! Huuuu… how is this possible ?

If you look at their QRZ.com page http://www.qrz.com/db/5v7tt, you will learn the secret !

Zoom their picture and count legs and foots that appear on the sand… the sum is 16 !!

Well done folks…. hopefully QSL will be a real paper qsl

useless to say… this post is a joke…..but picture is true.. stiamo scherzando gente