ON7RU - OQ7R

When throwing the words C91VM and rejection in google you will find a few hundred links to websites and blogs.
In short: To get the contact confirmed of this DXpedition, the operator requested a $5 donation for a shoolproject in Mozambique.
RSGB, the founder of the IOTA program didn't accepted this way of working and promptly rejected the DXped as a valid IOTA activation.
I have been on the other side of the pileup (5A, C56, EA8, SV8, /LH) so I know QSL'ing is expensive and time-consuming, but these days QSL becomes more and more a commercial activity. I've always confirmed my contacts by buro or direct, it's just part of the DXped and it's an honour to find my QSL in the collection of a fellow ham.
Respect for the decision of the board of the IOTA program, I think they gave a good "signal" for future IOTA trippers.
Today, 9G5TT & 9G5XX are on the air from Ghana. Their QSL policy isn't really ham friendly as well.
Only via direct, no sign of any LOTW upload. I'm not saying I2YSB is a green paper chaser but why not using the buro system?
It's like the frequency spectrum, use it or lose it. Previous DXpeditions of I2YSB have been sponsored by GDXF, NCDXF, and others. Don't know if these organisations have any policy about QSL'ing, but I wouldn't sponsor a DXped who only offers QSL via direct.
A paper QSL card is something I cherish and it's something I show to visitors, club members and my girlfriend (who designs my cards).
In addition I will also subscribe to LOTW and change my own QSL policy...no more green papers to "direct only" hams.

Up to five years ago, there were several DXpeditioners who handed out QSL cards at the ham fest in Frederichshafen. Why not give the DXpeditioners a forum/place where they can present their DXpedition and distribute their QSL cards? I think this can be a win-win situation for the "messe" and for the ham community AND for the DXpeditioner. Everyone who gets a card will give something in return for a nice card...

Did you ever heard the saying "hamradio opens doors"? I heard it the first time while watching the fifth ICOM radionews.
The first and major part of the movie was dedicated to Tim duffy, K3LR, owner of a superstation and winner of many multi-multi contests.
Tim works or worked in het mobilephone business and hamradio helped him to build a nice career. A couple of weeks ago, the company were I work for since 15 years, had a job offer for a RF design engineer.
After several years of people management in an xDSL and IPTV customer helpcenter environment I was looking for a new challenge.
So I sended my CV and motivation to the HR department. To cut a long story short....I have the job.

Last few weeks I wasn't very active but During the CQ WW SSB contest I found some time to work a few new ones and a couple of new band/modes.
15m was in good shape, did you noticed the sunspot index jumped from 68 to 82? Think near hamfuture looks really bright.
Because I couldn't catch sleep I got up during the night and worked several NA on 80m SSB, actually my first NA ever on 80m SSB.
Worked the regular powerstations W3LPL, KC1XX, K1DG, K3LR and several others. Belgians most active contester, Franki OQ5M even worked +50 NAs....wow.
Another new one on 80m was Bodo, 5N0OCH. Bodo has 13 QSOs with ON7RU in his log, which brings me pretty high in the belgian main leaderbord.

That's it for now, CU next week.

Spotcoëfficiënt, isn’t it a beautiful word? Following this link, it even generates 75 “scrabble” points. The word might not be available in your dictionary nor your vocabulary, it will be added soon after the FT5GA DXpedition. Spotcoëfficiënt is a number that you get when you divide the number of QSOs made by a DXpedition by the number of spots on the DXcluster. FT5GA won’t break many records, but sure they will slash this one.

Comments like finally, thanks QSO, bad ops, weak, QRX again, holiday style, EU lids, requests for needed bands (do you guys really think they have access to these spots?),...

I got over it, FT5GA is not my favourite DXped. Even before the departure I knitted my brows when I noticed they left to Glorioso to activate a rare spot (they claimed most wanted #4) with 3 stations and only 6 operators. You can operate 12 or more hours the first few days but when the adrenaline is no longer rushing through your vaines, operator fatigue comes into o play. Did the French army wanted to play, to use French words, “Cavalier seul”?

Let this be a lesson learned for the ham community and future DXpeds.

After all, let us be thankful to the guys who spent their time and their (or the army) resources to handout new ones.

In a few days, XR0Y will be active from Easter Island. It’s not that high on the most wanted list but I noticed that their goals are similar to the FT5GA crew. 3 stations, 6 ops….fingers crossed.

By the way, heard or worked T6YA? The OP is another French army guy. He’s doing a great job. Working pileups @ +200 qso/hour, mainly CW @ 40 wpm. Rumours say he couldn’t wait to jump out of the plane and he pulled his parachute over Afghanistan instead of FT5….hihi.

 

See you next time

In the early nineties I got a pile of old CQ-QSO hamradio magazines from ON7ZE (SK).
In the SWL section there was a guy that won contest after contest, year after year. Het got the SWL call ONL-383
Today, ONL-383 is known as ON3ND. His call may not be familiar to you but his QRP staion is logged by many DXpeditions.
Jean-Jacques or "JJ" for the friends is an operator that not only watches the DXluster, he also uses the big knop in the middle of his tranceiver.
This allows him and his little pistol station to log DX before they appear on the cluster.
I've been on a few IOTA trips, sometimes making less then 500 Qs, but JJ managed to work me every time, often several times and always in CW.
I never met JJ but I'm curious to know why he waited a few decades to apply for a license.
Keep up the good work "JJ", you're a damn good operator.

A couple of days ago I worked VK9NI as a new one. The operator defenitely came back to me with "ON7RU 59" but the online log didn't

showed any ON7RU. I suppose the OP made a little typo and entered ON7RY. I mailed the QSL manager but no answer so far.

Hope we can sort this out by sending him a card with the right time & date.

If not? Well it's nice to have proof the hexbeam performs well, Only 20 ON-stations made it into the log.

It's at least good for my pride and ego. By the way, there are more ON-stations with an ego. Hans, ON6ZK & OR0A (vanity) is one and

the same person and he worked them twice in CW & SSB with both calls on 20M.....only god knows why.

Thanks again to the VK9NI team for this +10.000 miles QSO and congrats with this +10.000 QSO DXped.

Frank, ON7RU

Last weekend we (ON4CCC, ON4CIS and Myself ON7RU) attended for the ninth time in a row in the ILLW.
ILLW stands for International Lighthouse Weekend. We're not talking about contesting here, Lighthouses are just activated and the goal
is to handout some new references. Over the years the ILLW became more and more popular. A couple of years ago we were happy with 500 QSOs,
last weekend we passed for the first time the 1K marker.
Maybe the 100 digi modes QSOs from our visitor Tommy, ON3TD made the difference.
The installation of the antennas started on Friday, on top of the LH we installed a monoband dipole for 20m, we had a G5RV for 40 and a
homebrew dipole for 80m. Conditions were that good, that Mark stayed till 2am to handout the BEL-001 reference.
I arrived Saterday afternoon to work some CW but 20 was full with UA constest stations.
Late in the evening we had great runs on 80m SSB and 80M CW, didn't knew that so many hams were up that late @ night.
Saturday night/Sunday morning I tried to get some sleep around 3am, but a 2 x 1500w flashing light didn't make things easy.
Finally I felt asleep but around 6am I woke up and after two blinks of an eye I was back at the key. I switched between 20 & 80m and put many
more in the log. Mark & Luc arrived @ 9am with the breakfast, thank guys.
We stayed there till 6pm and managed to work + 1K QSOs, but what's more important, we had a great day/night.
We enjoyed the great comments and feedback.
 
Special thanks to Mark for the loan of his outstanding ICOM 775 DSP, Luc for his backup/2M IC7000,  Tommy for the digimode QSOs and the section EKO for their support & visits.
Another word of appreciation goes To Henri Meere, the lighthouse keeper. After all these years we are welcomed guests and without his
support it wouldn’t be possible to activate the lighthouse. The lighthouse is a museum as well (free entrance) bring Henri a visit and
ask him about the "crazy radiomateurs", he can tell stories for hours...so can I, but that's for next time.
 
So long and see you on the air.

hi dear readers.

A couple of weeks ago I visited Friederichshafen. As last year I had the opportunity to join Ruddy, ON7DR for a 500 mile drive direction south.
This year we had an old fashioned hot edition and we enjoyed temperatures of 30+ degrees.
Was it worth it? Well if you drive down there just to see the beautiful eyes of optibeams Diana, no it's not. But for all other reasons it is.
There were many commercial stands and I had the impression there were more visitors then last year. You could find some good deals as well,
the german W**O was my favorite dealer this year. Last year I hesitated to buy the FT2000 @ the hamfest. A couple of months ago I decided to buy one in Frederichshafen, but couple of days before leaving I found a great second hand FT2K in PA-country. Another 350 mile drive..... I found some good deals for the FT2K accessories like the speaker, CW filter and the keypad.

The fleamarket was as big as last year. Over 2 halls were filled with old radio junk and some interesting parts could be found. Some dealers move from
the main hall to the fleamarket to reduce their costs, so it's worth to check these dealers as well. Like all other fleamarkets also Friederichshafen has
stands that have nothing to do with hamradio nor electronics, but I consider them as a moment to relax my eyes and attention.
Friederichshafen is just more dan hardware, there were several interesting meetings. I joined the 3B7C presention, IOTA conference and the DX'ers meeting.
For me, the 2008 edition was well worth the money & time. A thing I would like to see more in the future is the distribution of QSL cards of some major
DXpeditions. In previous editions you could easely score some nice QSL cards, this year, only 4U1ITU was offering cards. well done guys.

Enjoy my windows XP Bodensee picture  hihi

Early 2008 my girlfriend booked a holidaytrip to another EU IOTA island. I have to admit Kelly supports my hamradio hobby.
In return I only had to pay the trip  hihi. After activating SV8, EA8 she agreed on a trip to EA6. This year we left the 28th of
May for a 9 day stay. We rented a bungalow in a resort called tropicana ***, its located at the south-east side of the island.  The bungalow itself was located  20m ASL and 200m from the beach.
Last year I learned I'd better had my own fisshing pole with me to support the antenna, so I took the 12M (36ft) pole from dx-wire which did a great job.
This year I had a G5RV instead of a FD3 I usually use on a trip. There were easy to climb lightpoles available to support the legs of the G5RV.

Conditions were not that good, so I concentrad on the lower bands like 30, 40 and some 80M. EA6 is not a rare country, but had some nice runs on 40 cw.
I operated holiday style, so only in the evening, about 2 or 3 hours a days with some days of no activity at all.
At the end I had about 500 QSOs in the log. 75% CW, 10% SSB and 15% PSK.
Thanks again for the contacts, you QSL card will be answered, Kelly is working on that topic.

P.S. see what nice lightpoles they have in EA6, the are all hamradio compliant/support climbing.

This guy is packed and ready to go. No, not an early depart to Friederichshafen but to my holiday destination.....EA6.
Yes, this year we're heading to Mallorca, EU-004.
The yeasu FT-990 is packed and I'll use a 12m pole to support the G5RV.
I might enter the WPX contest but not sure if I'm gonna make it. Had some trainingsessions with morserunner and easely made 180 Qs/hour, but computercontesting is not the same as reallife contesting.(see picture) I  practiced once or twice a day 30mins on the train, started a couple of weeks ago @ 22wpm and finished with 30wpm.
Just to bad the Palstar BT1500A is to big to carry it with me, the results I have with this balanced tuner and the 2x20m inverted V are astonishing.
Some stations I worked the last few days, most of them with 100W, CW. 20M --> CT3/OM3LA, 6Y5/K4BAI, 30M --> CO8LY, A45WD, 40M --> 6Y5/N7ZG, PZ5RA, 80M --> 9K2/SP4R
Hadn't time to take some pictures of the setup, I will upload them after the EA6 trip.
So, I'm gonna relax for another hour, which wont be easy with all the adrenaline in my vaines.

73s, futuring EA6/OQ7R