Author - Jamie Williams

Final 24 Hours before PJ4

In the final 24 hours before I depart for Bonaire I am almost fully packed. I have 1 antenna to make for 30m to do a real effort on CW. Tonight I venture to the airport where I will stay in a hotel ready to depart first thing in the morning to Amsterdam, followed by a long haul flight to Bonaire. 

I will be trying to give everyone the opportunity to work Bonaire. Especially the little guys!  Skeds are OK by Appointment (Email me) Another reminder about the Live log, I have made this to reduce dupe’s in the same pile up. SWL reports are also welcome Via The SWL OQRS System 

See you in the Pile ups!

M0SDV out of town

I am away for 19 days between 15th March and 2nd April. All QSL cards before this date have been sent out. Any QSL cards you request between these times will likely be delayed until I arrive home in the UK. I apologise for any Inconvenience.

I am going to the Caribbean Island of Bonaire where I will do a DXpedition and the CQ WPX Contest. For full information on this activation see one of my earlier posts. I will update here as and when during my stay.

PJ4/M0SDV Update

With limited time left before my DXpedition to Bonaire for RDXC and WPX SSB I wanted to write a short update, and summaries all of my previous posts into one paragraph. So here goes…

DK6SP and I will be on Bonaire from 16/03/18 to 01/04/18, We will also visit one other DXCC in the caribbean (Stay tuned). We will enter RDXC with PJ4/call and CQ WPX as PJ4V. Our WPX team is DK6SP, M0SDV, PJ4DX, PJ4KY and PJ4NX. Out side of the contest QRV as PJ4/Calls on 160-6m CW, SSB and maybe FT8. During our non contest activity we will be running Live logs Via Clublog and Wintest. Live logs will appear on this website (See below). We will focus on CW and 30m in particular to give you all a new slot. Thanks to MW0JZE for letting us use his hex beam, DXcommander and Steve PJ4DX. QSL Via Home calls and PJ4V Via M0URX

Phew!

Almost didn’t make it.. 5 days 10 Hours, 28 minutes now! Can’t wait! See you all in the pile up

 

ARRL DX SSB @ M6T

This weekend saw me making another visit to the biggest contest station in England. We had planned to do a Multi 2 entry, but due to severe Weather here in the UK and the “Beast from the East” storm some of our ops couldn’t make it. In the end we had to do Multi Single with 3 ops. Our Team was Myself M0SDV, Dave G4BUO and Kieron M0HKB. 

We started out our contest on 40m. For this band we have at our disposal a 3 element full sized Yagi at 65ft high. Again, due to extreme weather we were unable to get the tower to 100ft and conditions were not in our favor.  At the beginning there was a reasonable rate of around 1 Q a minute. Whilst this isn’t bad, it isn’t as high as we’d have liked for a good low band score. After a band change to 80m things started to pick up a bit. but as the night progressed on it unexpectedly slowed down. And come mid morning the bands had died. Time for a break. 

During the morning quiet spell the weather was calm. This gave us chance to crank up the 40m beam to full height, and add a T vertical for 160m. Then 20m began to open. 

It started slow for the first hour or two, as expected as the band started to open. But come 13:00z we had rates of 143 QSO’s per hour. The grew through the afternoon to 188 QSO per hour. And this didn’t slow until after dark when the band died out. 

Another night on the low bands was very slow, however 80m held a nice size run of W’s at between 01:00z and 02:00z. But it was very slow for the rest of the night. The second day wasn’t much better either. However 15m did open for a little while bringing over 160 QSO’s. and 20m gave us some nice pile ups of up to 150 QSO’s per hour. 

The multupliers (Mults) in this contest are US States and Canadian Provinces. 

As shown in Worked mults to the left and the Summary below, the most Mults were on 20m. We worked 61 States/Provinces. Which is all of them except for Yukon and Northern Territory. The worst band was 160m with only 16 mults. This is expected considering the conditions.

Over all we made 3120 QSO’s with 189 Mults and a score of 1.76 Million. We found that with 3 ops Multi Single is quite enjoyable. Each person gets plenty of chair time (but not too much) and more importantly each operator gets plenty of sleep and is always ready o tale over on the radio should someone require it.

Thanks to our small Team for a good weekend, Those who stopped by to offer relief for an hour or two and a Huge Thanks to Brenda and Vernon at M6T for taking good care of us. Roll on the next contest!

 

 

 

Multi-QSL Offer

Are you requesting multiple QSL cards? Part of a DX group seeking confirmations or do you and your friends want to save some money and request QSL cards together?

I would like to remind everyone of my Multi-QSL offer. This is available for all Call signs that I am QSL Manager for. Recently I have been receiving QSL requests from the same people for different stations that I manage. Sending all of these in separate envelopes is costly and wasteful. So I often send packages out to those who have requested. But there is a cheaper way for you to request multiple QSL cards

I offer a Multi-QSL service that allows you to request all the QSL cards you want/Need in one big package, and here’s how it works with simple step by step instructions.

  1. Use Club logs Log search feature to find your QSO
  2. Email me, Jamie@M0SDV.COM with all QSO details for the cards you want
  3. I will send you a custom postage price and a pay pal link to complete to transaction
  4. Once postage prices are paid for I will send your package with Priority Business Airmail

Estimated prices in my Multi-QSL offer are as follows:

  2 to 4 QSL’s by OQRS £3 GBP EMAIL ME LIST OF QSO
  5 to 10 QSL’s by OQRS £5 GBP  EMAIL ME LIST OF QSO  
  11 to 20 QSL’s by OQRS £8 GBP  EMAIL ME LIST OF QSO

Email: Jamie@M0SDV.COM

To get this offer, I ask that all funds sent to me Via Pay pal, in the Multi-QSL offer are in GBP. This offer is only available on the basis of Email requests and Pay pal transfers. If you are sending your request Via Postal mail please Email me for the Multi-QSL Cost in USD. Please NO IRC’s If you request with IRC’s then your QSL will be sent Via the Bureau.

QSL Mailing update

A short update that I’ve been wanting to write for some time now. All QSL cards for YOTA, 7X5KBS, DM500RT, V31PS and other calls are now 100% up to date as of last week. Please expect to receive your QSL cards soon!

Remember, I provide a guarantee with all letters. If you have not received your QSL card, please email me within 2 months of the letter being posted and I will send a replacement free of charge.

Do you need a QSL manager? Well look no further. Click here for everything you need to know!

YOTA Camp 2018 – ZS9YOTA

With the December YOTA Month QSL cards almost done it is time to start looking forward to this years YOTA camp in South Africa. As This years camp is being held in the Southern Hemisphere it will actually be YOTA Winter camp despite being in the middle of July.

Work for this event started in November 2017 by a small working team of young people in South Africa in association with SARL and IARU Region 1. As QSL Manager for the IARU R1 YOTA program I am happy to see the progress of this event growing as time goes on.

I wish the organizing team and participants all the best for the event, and I hope it is as successful if a bigger success than past YOTA camps.

 

Bureau Posting February 2018

The first Bureau posting of 2018 saw cards posted to 86 world bureaus. This is a joint effort Between Charles M0OXO, Tim M0URX and Jamie M0SDV

This Bureau dispatch includes cards from recent DXpeditions, YOTA Month and GB17YOTA. All of which have been sent as priority mail so you get your cards as quick as possible.

The total amount is QSL cards: 20 274

Via M0SDV 2 537

Via M0URX 4 403

Via M0OXO 12 499

Via Others    835

We are interested in knowing when your cards arrive, so feel free to send me an email when you get yours.

M0SDV teams up with DX-world

 

Today it has been confirmed that I will be QSL manager for the DX-World.net teams Inaugural DXpedition. So far it has been confirmed that I will be managing TA0/MM0NDX and TA0/ON9CFG is also interested in using my service.

 

The team will be travelling to AS-201, Buyukada Island in Turkey from 7th – 11th May 2018. They will be QRV on 80 – 2m Holiday style, with the aim of having fun and working as many DX-World readers as possible.

If you are interested in using me as your QSL manager, for upcoming DXpeditions, Holiday style activations or if you live in a rare DXCC entity please click here or email Jamie@M0SDV.com

PJ4V Confirmed

Our 2018 CQ WPX SSB Call sign has today been confirmed as PJ4V. We have 5 operators that will be with us during the WPX SSB contest in March of 2018.  The category we will be entering is Multi 2 High Power.

Operators are: DK6SP, M0SDV, PJ4DX, PJ4KY and PJ4NX

QSL cards for this Call sign are Via M0URX OQRS and LoTW. Your QSL cards are not required!

Thanks to MW0JZE for allowing us use of his antenna on Bonaire