All day today (26/09/2022) there has been a station on 20M FT8 and FT4 claiming to be from a very rare island near New Zealand – ZL8 Kermadec. Turns out it has been a pirate in central Europe pirating the call. Shame as it would have been an all time new country for my DXCC count.
https://dxnews.com/forum/forum/dxing/44683-zl8ac-pirate-alert
Once more the GPDX group share their list of upcoming IOTA’s. Some fun ones due. Lets hope we can get on the air and work them.
Teletype Corporation Model 19ASR
This weekend is the CQ World Wide RTTY DX Contest, another one of my favourite contests of the year. And it is also my favourite mode of RTTY, a digital mode that is now transmitted and decoded by computer, but used to be transmitted/decoded by a machine before we all had PC’s. These machines used to sit in a corner of the shack “chattering” away to themselves where the sent message was on a tape typed by the typewriter kind of letters. All good fun but noisy, now the computer sends the tones and is a lot quieter as the received message is on screen.
If you have never had a go and have your kit set up for FT8 or other digi modes then this is easy to have a go. The software used here is N1MM which will log the QSO and create a contest entry for you too.
Today we here in the UK laid to rest our Queen, Elizabeth II. A sad day and a day of mourning for the whole country. I for one have been a supporter of the royal family and will do so for the remainder of my life.
As a radio amateur I have been honoured to be allowed to use the “Q” as a secondary letter to my prefix and call, GQ1VDP, to celebrate her majesties Diamond and Platinum (60 and 70 years) jubilees but could not bring myself to use it on such a sad occasion. I am also proud watching the TV coverage of the funeral and all the pageantry and ceremony that goes with a state funeral, and think we Brits certainly know how to do it with style. I am also proud of all the service men and women who have taken part in the whole event over the past 10 days since her death.
We now need to look forward and to the reign of our new King, King Charles III. I will be on air using the special prefix, I am sure we will be granted it, upon the occasion of his coronation some time in 2023 with a special QSL card made to celebrate the occasion (watch this space).
For now RIP ma’am, God Save the King.
(Image taken from SKY TV, with gracious thanks)
Today. 8th September 2022, we have received the sad news that our monarch Queen Elizabeth II has passed away. She served with grace, humility, and dignity. Carrying out her duties right
through to the last days, meeting and instating our new prime minister just 48 hours earlier. She was our Queen for 70 years, celebrating her platinum jubilee this year. But it was 10 years ago I activated a special call GQ1VDP to celebrate the diamond jubilee and had this special card printed to remember the occasion, again I operated as GQ1VDP this year also to celebrate the platinum jubilee.
We here in the UK are saddened by the news and will miss her, Rest In Peace your majesty.
With this in mind we now have a new king, the Queens eldest son Charles.
Long live King Charles III
GPDX Group have just posted their updated IOTA Calendar to their Facebook page. Some interesting stuff coming up over the next few months, lets hope we all get in the log.
