Archive - July 2014

My thoughts about IOTA & Bureau today

27 July 2014
IOTA and getting the QSL cards needed!
With another IOTA contest behind us, I was thinking once again how much I would love to chase IOTA and claim awards. But it is way out of the reach in costs of QSL’ing, and this is not just myself but of many others. I have about 150 IOTA’s that I need QSL cards from but nearly all of them are direct only so I feel pretty disillusioned with the whole award program simply because of these costs.
 
For those of you that were at the recent IOTA convention you will know that RSGB / IOTA have ruled out any log matching facility or use of the ARRL LOTW programme due to the costs involved. I feel it is a great shame as IOTA has a massive captive audience but no or very little investment / support from the RSGB, and this includes how the bureau is currently working.
 
We need more IOTA DXpedition teams to allow bureau requests, my own experience with the RSGB bureau is that we are constantly told what we can’t send and ironically most of the cards I CAN’T send through the RSGB bureau, are QSL cards for its own IOTA award program. Remember if you are not the licence holder of that call sign you can’t use RSGB to receive QSL cards either, so some of the club activations cannot use the incoming bureau for their “mini” DXpeditions to UK IOTA’s
Read More

OQRS is the way to request!

25 July 2014

OQRS really is the quickest way to receive your Bureau cards from M0URX. On May 21st 2014, DF7EF made an OQRS request for many Bureau cards, these were duly processed and carefully put into the DARC Bureau box. The box was then sent to DARC on June 2nd. This week Uli reports:

“I just got my monthly QSL parcel from the DARC-QSL-bureau and I was amazed how many cards were actually coming from your hands. And the greatest of all: I made my way through your OQRS  on the 21. May 2014. That’s roughly 2 months. What an unbelievable quick service. My heartful thanks to your great work to the ham community. DF7EF Uli”

It is not just the DARC Bureau either! RX3AU from Russia writes: … “Tnx for QSL from GS0NWM, MS0INT (11 QSO), CY9M, VK9MT & others.”

The question that I have to ask is WHY does the RSGB have one of the SLOWEST Bureaus in the World? In tests here it is taking one to two years to get QSL cards to RSGB members, and that is sending from here as an RSGB member! 

Bureau does NOT mean slow! Just be clever and use OQRS for your Bureau cards!

QSL Design Preview

25 July 2014
QSL-5B4AGN

Two more new designs have been added to the United Radio QSL collection, MW/VK8NSB & 5B4AGN.

QSL-5B4AGN-BACK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

QSL-MW-VK8NSBQSL-MW-VK8NSB-BACK

DKARS Magazine

25 July 2014
DKARS Magazine

Dutch Kingdom Amateur Radio Society have issued their first magazine, click the image to get the magazine in PDF.

In this magazine from the Dutch Kingdom Amateur Radio Society you will read  “in short, we are a foundation that will serve the interests of all Dutch radio amateurs in the broadest
sense of the word, and thereby also want to pay attention to interest young people in technique. Indeed, the amateur radio hobby contains a plurality of technical aspects where young people can take part in and benefit of in their future careers.  
And do not forget, we’re going to organize the Dutch Kingdom Contest (DKC) ! Every year on the first weekend of June, further on in in this issue more about this” 
Thank you to Peter PJ4NX for the information.

 

Donate your old out of date IRC’s to United Radio Bureau!

21 July 2014
IRC Old

What can you do with out of date IRC’s?

We all have them don’t we? Old out of date IRC’s, yellow ones, blue ones or a stack of recent IRCs that expired in 2013. Package them up and send them to United Radio.
 
We will return these OLD IRC’s to the UPU in exchange for stamps. You can help by donating your old out of date IRC’s and sending them to us.
 
We will use the money to pay for printing of QSL cards for the next sponsored DXpedition team.
Thank you kindly for all IRC’s sent.