United Radio QSL Management are proud to support the 2009 Rockall EU-189 Expedition. For the teams involved we will provide QSL Management services. Col MM0NDX explains:

Having been in daily contact with Island Man/Andy Strangeway, I fully appreciate just how much time and energy has gone in to arrive at this particular point of the Rockall 2009 expedition. Below is a press release issued on Island Man’s Rockall website.   Col, MM0NDX http://dx-hamspirit.com/ 

Isle of Rockall, EU-189

Press Release http://islandmanrockallexpedition2009.com/

I appreciate it would appear that there has been little news in the last few weeks but I can assure everyone that things have certainly been moving. I expect before Christmas that news of transportation to Rockall being secured will be announced.

Working in tandem with my friend Col, MM0NDX I am acutely aware of the interest shown in EU-189. With this in mind I would like to invite radio hams, be they individuals or clubs, to contact me with their proposals to be part of this exciting expedition. I require the following information to be included in the proposal.

The maximum and minimum number of berths that would be required.       
A CV of previous radio activations of those that would be involved.
Any information of additional skills that would strengthen the depth of the expedition, for example any crewing of yacht/boat, tender experience or climbing ability.
The countries who have so far shown the greatest interest in the expedition are Belguim, France, Japan, Norway, UK and USA. I would especially like to hear from Japanese radio hams as not one operator from Japan has ever contacted Rockall. EU-189 is the most wanted IOTA in Japan.

Once the transport has been secured, the team for the expedition will be selected and dates announced. A website can be built especially for the radio hams and a QSL manager is already secured should you require these extras.

For all proposals in the first instance, please contact Andy at info@island-man within the next seven days. http://www.island-man.co.uk/

This weeks log update from John 9M6XRO includes the following information:
“We are going to Labuan OC-133 on Nov 24th and will operate from the 24th to the 28th November. We will use 9M6DXX/P and 9M6XRO/P using mainly SSB and CW hopefully on all bands 160-10m running 400w. We have not put this on any bulletins as yet. A few other ops are going from the SEANET group so there may be other calls in use as well. We are taking 2 rigs but as we have no bandpass filters we will only be able to run two stations if we can get enough separation between the antennas.
QSL Via M0URX direct or email bureau request to tim@m0urx.com

JOTA at Dorridge Scout Group
Well I really enjoyed JOTA today, we had about 100 scouts and beavers through the JOTA station this afternoon. Callum M0MCX had spent the last few days on a project antenna for some fun, using computer modelling he has made a 168m corner fed loop in a triangle formation between trees at a height of 27m above ground using sling fishing rods to get the lines to the top of the trees. I arrived to see the wire antenna in a perfect triangle above the field next to the scout hut. It looked really impressive the 550 feet of copper wire between 3 huge trees.

Callum had a video introducing amateur radio to the beavers, cubs & scouts, then Terry G4MKP did an introduction to Morse code with a lesson in sending and receiving CW. Followed by an explanation about QSL cards and writing a message that the kids would then transmit over the amateur radio.

I was operator to generate some pile ups so that I could pick off a few strong stations that would help us with the passing of messages to the scouts. The wire loop was working well, a quick test put GB1DSG in the log of VK9DWX Willis Island, then a QSY up the band to generate a nice pile up to the USA working North & South Dakota Oregon and up to Saskatchewan, Canada. I put out a CQ call for a strong station to help with the transmission of the scouts messages and nearly jumped out the chair as V8BDS Rahamen in Brunei called with a huge signal, he was kind and patient enough to help with about 15 cubs that were only 9, 10 and 11 years old and they were quite amazed that they were talking to someone so far away. Although there was some guy on frequency taking the mickey trying to disrupt the station but I ignored this and after about 5 minutes he stopped.
Excellent afternoon! All credit to Callum M0MCX for organising it so well.  73 de Tim M0URX

Another really difficult “New one” for me, VK9DWX Willis Island was worked on 20m this morning. I am pleased to say that it was the sponsored young gun on the microphone ZS6DXB Rhyn, for his first major DXpedition he was doing an excellent job with the European pile up sounding very proffesional.
For more news on VK9DWX go to: http://www.vk9dwx.de/index.php