Category - Uncategorised

Well that’s the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) done with for another year. Once again, we smashed it as a team in the Viewing Village, lots of comments from customers about how good it was on all 3 days. In fact the whole team who organise the show must be thanked from me for one of the best, both in the air and on the ground. Without all the planning and preparation done over the year it just would not happen. The RAF Charitable Trust Enterprise (RAFCTE) who put together the show and give all profits from the show to the RAFCT whose aim is to inspire future generations through STEM and education.

Lots of fun each day too when we returned to our accommodation at the Royal Agricultural University, nicknamed Hogwarts, with other volunteers from other teams. I must also add a thank you to the staff here for looking after us, especially Louis in the bar who convinced his boss to open on the Sunday evening so we could celebrate a team members birthday – happy birthday Dave.

I must also mention, and thank, the Royal Air Force Cadet Force who attend and help out each year. These kids do a stirling job helping to set up the seating in the Viewing Village, doing the FODPLOD to make sure no litter is on the ground and can get into the aircraft, and with our customers when they come through the reception area. When they set up the chairs we give them a challenge, an idea of mine and their officer Scott, to insert a word and/or numbers of one of the themes of the show. Previous years have been USAF 75, Italia 100, and this year RCAF 100 in honour of the Royal Canadian Airforce 100 years. We are already planning 2025 and now we have CAD it will be easier to design.

So thanks to all and hopefully see you on an airfield in Gloucestershire during July 2025.

Friday morning came and after having breakfast we ordered a local taxi to take us to the Messe for the show, Ady (G6AD), Charles (M0OXO), Grant (VK5GR) and myself arrived with plenty of time to get to the stand and get set up. Unfortunately, Grant had to wait for the doors opening to the show before he could gain access, while the three of us were part of the IOTA stand we had exhibitor passes and went to the stand to complete the set up. Thanks at this point must go to Corrine from the team at the Messe for getting 2 of her guys to move the wall so we were not cut off from the main DX Plaza. This also gave us a good view of the small presentation area we had next to the stand, of which more later.

The doors opened, and a steady stream of visitors came to see us, mostly friends from previous visits along with many of our friends from off the air. This is the best part about the show, socialising and chatting with the person you have only before heard on the air or not seen since the last Ham Radio show here. It is also good to see the operators who you only see in photographs about the DXpeditions and IOTA activations that are on the air for short periods. It is also good to see the number of British visitors to the show, and I think this year there were a lot more visitors from far flung places – Australia, USA, Japan, etc – walking around and saying hello as they passed.

As previously mentioned, we had a small presentation area next to the stand where some of the recent DX-pedition operators came and gave a talk on their adventures. This started with Philip, DK6SP, giving a presentation of the 8R7X Guyana trip. This was one of the best DX-peditions I have ever heard or worked. 4 young lads, all with experience from other trips, all good at CW and controlling the pile ups, and they were on the air and readable by everyone. It was just a pleasure to hear them when they were there.

As the day passed, we each went for a walk around the halls to see what the latest equipment was on sale, meet old friends, pay our memberships to some of the DX groups and societies, and check out the food stalls. A beer late afternoon in the garden gave me chance to catch up with Rune, LA7THA, and Gjermund, LB5GI. No news on any DXpeditions from him, but it was good to chat and hear the news from Norway.

Looking at the equipment I was taken by the small footprint of the Optibeam OB9-5 antenna that they had on display, Optibeam Yagis were there promoting their antennas. The OB9-5 Covers the bands 20, 17,15, 12, and 10M with 2 elements on each band, and a boom length of only 5.1M, this would fit into many of the small gardens here in the UK and would certainly improve the signals to work DX for many. I guess this antenna with an amplifier could get some of us little pistols competing in the Dxpedition pile ups.

Soon it was time to close the IOTA stand and head back to the hotel to change ready for the evening meal. With it being the 60^th Anniversary of the IOTA Award, started back in 1964 by Geoff Watts – A British shortwave listener – and going from strength to strength each year, we held a dinner at the Zeppelin Museum Restaurant. This was the first time that the restaurant had opened in the evening, and we felt extremely honoured and grateful to the staff for hosting us. A fun evening again with old and new friends chatting about the IOTA awards, and other radio related matters. A most enjoyable evening and the food was excellent.

A walk back to the hotel and a beer sat outside to finish the day was just what was needed.

Saturday morning and again breakfast with a taxi to the Messe for day 2 of the show. The weather was looking as if it was going to be a scorcher in the hall, especially as the previous day the air conditioning had failed, and it was like being in a sauna. But the staff had been working on it and it was lovely and cool in there, which lasted throughout the day.

Again, a steady stream of visitors to the stand brought old and new friends, along with one or two interesting characters who needed to vent a little about the award – especially the gent from Manhattan who didn’t agree that it didn’t have an IOTA reference as it “is an island”, we then had to explain the ruling on why it didn’t qualify. It was good to meet him though and we did have a good chat and some laughs with him afterwards.

More wine, cheese, beers, and the French Pastis were brought to us from our friends around the DX Plaza at lunchtime. Along with the presentations and visitors we had another good day. I also managed to go and visit the “flea” market and drool over some old bits of kit that were on sale, and I do keep saying one day I may drive over and bring something back with me. Just not yet as I enjoy the travelling and socialising parts too much.

The day ended and we retired back to the hotel. A beer sat with friends before a small group of us went for the annual steak at Tiffany’s restaurant. A treat to ourselves, they really do some of the best steaks I have ever tasted. Back to the bar and watch the football, Germany played Denmark and won. At midnight the streets were full of people in cars blowing their horns and celebrating the German win. The roads were gridlocked but it was a happy atmosphere, though not good for sleep.

Sunday is the last day of the show, although not many visitors attend, mostly the weekenders who come and say their goodbyes and start the ravel to their homes around the globe. Our weekend companion Grant, VK5GR, said his farewells at breakfast and he started his 39 hour journey back to Adelaide with a train to Stuttgart. We packed away the stand and said our goodbyes to all around the DX Plaza before getting a taxi to the ferry.

This journey is the worst part about the trip, well not the actual travelling as like on the inbound trip it is relaxing and chilled. It is just the wait at the airport for the aircraft that is the bad bit.

On the ferry a coffee was bought, and a slice of cake enjoyed, is there a pattern here? hahahaha. But this year rather than go and sit on the platform waiting for the train to depart we decided to have a treat at the café on the Romanshorn marina, a beautiful little place with plenty of outdoor seating – even though it was raining. The train was still at the station when we finished and paid so no waiting there either.

Arriving in Zurich it was time to sit in the “Circle” and have our main meal. McDonalds and KFC were the choices of the four of us, Jaimie, M0SDV, had joined us for this trip back to the airport. It is strange no matter where you go there is always somewhere to sit, have a drink or food, and watch the world go by. I think it must be a worldwide hobby – people watching.

Over the road to the airport, find the check in desk and wait for it to open. This is the bad part about the journey, waiting. Eventually we check in and go through security and passport control to get the duty-free stuff. Years ago it would have been beer and wine, now I look for the giant orange flavoured Toblerone and huge Milka chocolate bars that end up coming home with me. A walk through the departures to another little favourite restaurant in the airport and we sit and chat over a lemonade before Jaimie had to leave us for his flight. The departure board was showing may of the flights were delayed by the weather, not just at Zurich but all over Europe. Ours was 1 hour late by the time we departed.

Arriving back at Heathrow we grabbed our bags, cleared customs and headed to collect the car. A long day and one we were all happy to see end in the hotel and a comfy bed.

Following a good nights sleep we had breakfast and set off home. My thanks must go once again to Charles and Ady for their wonderful company, the laughs, and the beers. To all the staff at the Hotel City Krone in Friedrichshafen, all at the Messe, and to DARC for organising the show. If I have missed any one out I am sorry and I will include you next year.

Did I say next year? Yes we are already booked in to the hotel(s), just need the flights to open up for sale. Again we are going that day earlier so we can enjoy Friedrichshafen and explore some more. So see you all at Ham Radio 2025.

July 1, 2024

MEMBER BULLETIN July 1, 2024 Dear ARRL member, Effective 12:00pm ET / 16:00 UTC we will be returning Logbook of The World® (LoTW®) to service. As work progressed on the network, some users encountered LoTW opening briefly during which some 6600 logs were uploaded. The logs were not processed until this weekend as we tested that the interfaces to LoTW were functioning properly. We are taking steps to help manage what will likely be a huge influx of logs. We are requesting that if you have large uploads, perhaps from contests or from a DXpedition, please wait a week or two before uploading to give LoTW a chance to catch up. We have also implemented a process to reject logs with excessive duplicates. Please do not upload your entire log to “ensure” your contacts are in LoTW as they will be rejected. Lastly, please do not call ARRL Headquarters to report issues you are having with LoTW. You can contact support at LoTW-help@arrl.org. Through the end of the year, you may experience planned times when LoTW will be unavailable. We have been using this time to evaluate operational and infrastructure improvements we would like to make to LoTW. Those times will be announced. We appreciate your patience as we worked through the challenges keeping LoTW from returning to service. We know the importance of LoTW to our members, and to the tens of thousands of LoTW users who are not ARRL members. LoTW, just behind QST, is our second most popular ARRL benefit.

Tuesday 25th June 2024

The time has arrived and we set off on our annual trip to Ham Radio, Friedrichshafen. Charles (M0OXO) once again kindly drove the car to London Heathrow where we had an overnight stay at the Premier Inn, Bath Road. Picking up Ady (G6AD) on our way through we had a nice trip from our home in the Midlands. 

Arriving around lunchtime at the hotel we had a short wait to get into our rooms. So we had a couple of drinks of coffee and then decide to have a beer to try and knock us out for some sleep. After checking in a meal in the bar area and early night was the order of the day ready for the 02:00 alarm to get to the airport for our flight departure of 6am.

Wednesday 26th June 2024.

When arriving at the airport the check ins didn’t open until 04:00 so a short wait before checking in, and then straight through security to our Swiss Air departure gate. 

Onto the aircraft and away we went, on time and in the air for 06:15.One hour and fifteen minutes later we arrived at Zurich Airport, disembarked the aircraft, collected our baggage, and into the train station. Tickets purchased and on the platform within 45 minutes of the plane touching down. 

The wait for the train was around 5 minutes, and with the usual efficiency we have come to remember of the Swiss rail service it arrived and our second leg of the journey began. What amazes us about the train service is how smooth and quiet it is within the carriage, both on the upper deck and lower decks there is hardly any noise, unlike the British train where it is clunky and noisy with running over the points and rail joints. After roughly one hour we arrive at our destination of Romanshorn, the interchange with the ferry across the beautiful Lake Constance.

The short 40 minute journey across the lake gave us time to get some refreshment. Both Ady and I chose to have Apple Pie and cream to take off the hunger before we went to dinner later that day, with a coffee for all 3 of us. If ever you are on the boat across Lake Constance on this journey then do try the apple pie, it was delicious, and one of the best I have ever tasted. Docking in FHN gave us the chance to walk through the town to our hotel, the Hotel City Krone, completing the whole journey from taking off at Heathrow to sitting outside the hotel in 4 1/2 hours. A record for us in our travelling time. We had a little wait before we could get into our rooms so we sat outside on the street tables, watched the world go by and had another coffee. Completely chilled and ready for the madness of the weekend.

At 15:00 (local) we were able to enter our rooms and drop our luggage. This gave us time to go for a walk and find somewhere to eat along the lake front, A beautiful promenade with bars and restaurants to one side, and their outdoor seating areas to the other, overlooking Lake Constance. The choice of many styles and tastes, this night we chose our favourite – Bella Vista – which is a gorgeous little Italian restaurant serving excellent food. Charles received a message from our friend Grant (VK5GR) had arrived at the hotel from Australia, a 38 hour journey for the 4 days in Friedrichshafen, and went to meet him before bringing him down to the promenade to join us. This gave Ady and myself the chance to have a sneaky beer while we waited. Charles and Grant arrived and we ordered some of the most beautiful food I have ever tasted, and it is no wonder we have made this our favourite.

Thursday 27th June 2024.

As we had planned this was the day we would explore the small town centre and visit the Zeppelin Museum in the town, this is also situated along the lake side and is a beautiful 1920’s art deco building. A very interesting and informative place, and it just reminds you of how far we have advanced with the technology in just over 100 years. I had always been under the impression that the Zeppelins were made as a war machine rather than a passenger aircraft, but the Graf Zeppelin and the Hindenburg were both passenger aircraft that quite literally circumnavigated the earth. They were huge!! A model of the Airbus A380 (72 Meters long) was shown next to one of the airships (212 Meters) long and it looked tiny. The passenger cabins were small, but looked comfortable, and the public areas were plush with silver service for dining and waiter service for drinks – just showing the opulence of the era.  The images on here don’t do it justice.

Following this we went to the Messe (Exhibition Hall) to set up the IOTA (Islands On The Air)  table and get ready for the start on Friday. With this being the 60th Anniversary of the IOTA scheme the organisers DARC (Deutscher Amateur-Radio-Club), the national society of Germany, had constructed a special display with images of QSL cards and other information from many activations from the past. This was in the main foyer as you entered the show, and proved popular with many asking about the IOTA programme when they came into the hall and the stand.

There was not many on site when we arrived in the main hall, may be this being a working day for most they were still travelling to get there stands set up ready for the main event on the Friday and Saturday. EUDXF (European DX Foundation) were the first to arrive followed by the CDXC (Chiltern DX Club) from the UK the next, Chris (G4FZN) and his wife Pauline.
 

Today is the start of our journey to Ham Radio 2024, Friedrichshafen.

A journey that starts with Charles (M0OXO) leaving home at 05:00 to arrive at my house at 07:00, just having a coffee and catch up. Ady (G6AD) will be joining us shortly for the first leg to Heathrow for some fun plane spotting. We then get our flight to Zurich at 06:00 on Wednesday morning. A nice chilled relaxing trip from there on a train and a boat. 

Hopefully this year will see many old friends and new coming to say hello on the IOTA stand for the IOTA 60th anniversary. Hope all that are going have signed up for the IOTA dinner on Friday evening at the Zeppelin Restaurant. A week of good food and beer with lots of laughs guaranteed thrown in.

See you all there. 

ARRL outage – Update 22nd June 2024

ARRL staff continue to work with outside industry experts to ensure that all servers have been remediated, tested, and all data has been confirmed. We have also been working to ensure that the network is secure.

As noted in previous updates, Logbook of The World® servers and data are fine and working. LoTW® has dependencies on other servers, for example membership data, which have not yet been returned to service. We will announce when LoTW is open for user access. We anticipate that the queue will grow quite large once live, and we are evaluating ways to manage that potential issue.

As a reminder, 2024 ARRL Field Day <http://www.arrl.org/field-day> is this weekend. We note that some groups have scaled back or cancelled their outdoor plans due to excessive heat or severe weather threats. Please use caution this weekend (visit Heat.gov <https://www.heat.gov/> for heat and health information). Enjoy Field Day. The Field Day bulletin will be transmitted from W1AW and K6KPH as scheduled (see PDF schedule <http://www.arrl.org/…/Field-Day/2024/4_37-202420Sked.pdf>). Your Field Day results may be uploaded to https://field-day.arrl.org/fdentry.php or mailed to ARRL after the event.

This story will be updated with new developments.

Final countdown is on at Chateau G1VDP for the departure to FHN for Ham Radio 2024, as of Friday 21st June I have only 4 days until we go to London Heathrow for our flight to Zurich. All the paperwork is ready, my case is packed and we have been looking at the map of the Messe to see where the IOTA stand will be located. We are still in the DX Plaza but we have moved to the end and it looks like we will be on an “island”.  So please do pay the stand a visit and say hello, Ady G6AD may have a nice surprise for some of the first visitors, and we will have some special 60th anniversary souvenirs.

The following has today (4 June 2024) been posted on the ARRL website. Lets hope it is back up and running soon, but then it will probably crash with everyone uploading their logs.

ARRL Systems Service Disruption
06/04/2024
Updated 6/4/2024
On or around May 12, 2024, ARRL was the victim of a sophisticated network attack by a malicious international cyber group. ARRL immediately involved the FBI and engaged with third party experts to investigate.
This serious incident was extensive and categorized by the FBI as “unique,” compromising network devices, servers, cloud-based systems, and PCs.
ARRL management quickly established an incident response team. This has led to an extensive effort to contain and remediate the networks, restore servers, and staff are beginning the testing of applications and interfaces to ensure proper operation.
Thank you for your patience and understanding as our staff continue to work through this with an outstanding team of experts to restore full functionality to our systems and services.
We will continue to update members as advised and to the extent we are able.
This story will be updated with new developments.

Taken from Charles (M0OXO) website some interesting news for February 2025.

Following their successful journey to Guyana under the callsign 8R7X, the team is now setting their sights on a new destination in the Pacific region. Their next DXPpedition will take them to the Marshall Islands, scheduled for February 2025.

Stay tuned for more details as they become available. Additionally, the team is in the process of launching a website, which will soon be accessible.

Ranked #100 globally and #58 in Europe, the Marshall Islands hold significant allure, particularly for lowband enthusiasts worldwide.

Follow the team’s social media channels to stay updated on this thrilling adventure.