No, I’m not being selfish or tuning up my voice. Rather, I’m showing you the three “ME” QSL cards from my collection of QSL cards from stations whose call signs spell words. The N8ME card arrived a couple of days ago, and when I went to file it, I came across the cards from N3ME and K5ME. Since I don’t think I’ve included them in a post here, I thought I’d show all three in this one.
QSLs
QSLs: W8ARC
I usually post these two at a time, but I’m in a bit of a dry spell working stations whose call signs spell words. That being the case, I’ll post just a single one this time. I worked W8ARC just a couple of days ago, and his QSL card showed up yesterday. Thanks, Bob!
QSLs: There is lightning over the Tatras
The first stanza of the Slovak national anthem goes,
There is lightning over the Tatras,
thunderclaps wildly beat.
Let us stop them, brothers,
for all that, they will disappear,
the Slovaks will revive.
I’m a Slovak-American, so I always look forward to getting QSL cards from the old country. In the latest package from the QSL bureau, I got four of them. None of the callsigns spell words, but they’re still pretty cool.
This card commemorates the 150th anniversary of the birth of Jozef Murgas, one of the early pioneers of radio.
The caption on this card reads, “Sunrise of the hill Klak.”
This card reads, “This castle built in 1340.” The castle that Pavel is referring to is Likavský hrad (hrad is Slovak for castle). It is situated in the north-western part of Liptov, which, we believe, is the province that my ancestors lived in. According to Slovakia Travel, “the Castle was referred to for the first time in 1315. Its construction started with the intention to have a guarding point over the passage across the river Váh and the trade route from the Váh Basin to Orava and further to Poland.”
The castle on this QSL card is Bratislava Castle. It stands 85m over the Danube River.
Operating Notes: Babe in arms, LOTW renewal, working on my keying
The other night I worked Jock, N1JI on 40m. At one point, he sent, “QRX 1 BABY CRYING.” Baby crying? As it turned out, he was holding his baby son while he was in QSO with me.
How cool is that? I wonder if this experience will influence his son to become a ham (and hopefully a CW operator)? That would make Frank II a third-generation ham as Jock’s father, Frank, K1FLI is also a ham.
LOTW renewal
I’ve blogged before about the difficulties I had registering with the ARRL’s Logbook of the World (LOTW). That’s why when I received an e-mail from the ARRL saying that I had to renew my certificate, I got a little anxious.
Well, I’m happy to report that renewing my certificate was fairly painless. I simply followed the renewal instructions and the next day I got the new certficate by e-mail. After upgrading to the latest version of TQSL, I installed the certificate and all’s well with the QSLing world.
My latest stats include:
- 17,131 QSOs
- 4,233 QSLs
- 144 total DXCC entities confirmed, including 142 on CW
- All 50 states confirmed, including 49 on 40m, 46 on 30m, and 45 on 20m.
Working on my keying
So, despite being the “CW Geek,” and a big proponent of using paddles, I haven’t really been sending all the characters iambically. Particularly, those that start and end with a dit, such as R (di-dah-dit), L (di-dah-di-dit), and F (di-di-dah-dit). Those characters are more difficult to send because you have to make the dah contact while the dit is being sent.
About a month ago, I decided I’m just going to do it, though. I started with the letters C and R. Learning to send these two characters was easier than I thought. I’m now sending most Cs iambically, and I can send R without error most times.
The big thing is making an effort to send these characters iambically. My “muscle memory” is to send these characters as if I was using a single-lever paddle, not a dual lever. I have to really think about it, or I send the characters non-iambically. In the end, I’m not sure it’s really worth the effort, but I’m going to plug away at it.
UPDATE 11/2/15
I just received an e-mail from a reader who says:
You lost me. Even my wife the Eng Lit major and walking dictionary, doesn’t know what you are talking about. Please restate using something other than iambically.
I apologize if I lost you, too, but The reason his English Lit major wife couldn’t decode (pun intended) what I wrote is because iambic keying is an amateur radio term, not an English Lit term, although they are loosely connected. I don’t want to use another term because this is the term that amateur radio operators use.
If you’re an amateur radio operator, you need learn how we use this term in amateur radio. To see what I mean by iambic keying, have a look at the YouTube video below:
Help the ARRL redefine the rules for QSL card checkers
In yesterday’s missive from the Great Lakes Division director, Dale, WA8EFK, was this note:
CARD CHECKERS: Well, the facts are simply this: we need more and we need more to visit our hamfests.
The ARRL Programs and Services Committee has established a sub-committee to examine the current Field Checker guidelines, the appointment requirements and many of the details of the program. It has been a while since a thorough review has been conducted of the Field Checker rules so that is happening now.
Your Director has been asked to assist, and I have been actively discussing Field Card Checking with both active Checkers and aspiring ones plus the DX Community in general. Feel free to let me know your thoughts and I will see to it they are considered by the committee.
Today, Card Checkers can be nominated by one of the following methods:
- ARRL Section Manager,
- ARRL affiliated DX Club (A DX club is an ARRL affiliated club with at least 25 members who are DXCC members and which has, as its primary interest, DX. If there are any questions regarding the validity of a DX club, the issue shall be determined by the Division Director where the DX club is located.) A person does not have to be a member of the DX club to be nominated, or
- ARRL Division Director
These requirements impose some serious limits. For example, a Section with two DX clubs can have three Field Checkers, (possibly four, if the Director’s appointment was made in that geographic area). A change of Section Manager or Director has no bearing on appointing additional Field Checkers.
As you can see, geography and population density can affect where the Field Checkers are located and even how far they need to travel. Further, the rules are silent on how to replace non-active Checkers.
Suffice it to say, we have a list of things to consider, but hopefully, some improvements can be implemented within the next few months. In the meantime, our Division’s diligent Field Card Checkers are taking every opportunity to be at swaps to check our cards. They travel on their dime and truly deserve our sincere thanks for serving the DX community.
I don’t know how the ARRL came up with these bizarre rules, but it seems typical for the DXCC program. Also, it looks to me as though the official ARRL title is DXCC Card Checker, although as Dale pointed out to me, the card checkers do more than just check cards for DXCC credit. For more information on this program, download the PDF, “ARRL DXCC Card Checker Program Nomination and Eligibility Rules.”
QSLs: AM0FLY, SM6EAT, Z81X, ZD8R
I received an unexpected packet of QSL cards from the buro yesterday, and there were some great cards in the pack. Two were from stations whose callsigns spell words (AM0FLY and SM6EAT), and two more were cool DX cards (Z81X and ZD8R).
QSLs: N5WEB, K2HAT
Here are two cards from stations whose callsigns spell words. I didn’t actually work either of these stations. The first one, from N5WEB, I acquired on the bus ride from our hotel to the Dayton Hamvention. Mark was sitting across the aisle from me, wearing a cap with his callsign on it. When I mentioned that I’d like to work him sometime, so that I could get his QSL card, he reached into a pocket and pulled out one of these:
The card below from Lee appeared in the mail yesterday. I’m not sure why he sent it to me, except perhaps that he heard about my collection and wanted to be a part of it. Whatever the reason, thanks Lee!
QSLs: N4DAB, AC8TO
Here are a couple more QSLs for my collection of QSL cards from stations whose callsigns spell words:
QSLs: European special events
In the last batch of QSLs that I got from the bureau, there were three from special-event stations. One thing that I found interesting is that all three of them had more than one number in their callsigns.
I like this card because it shows kids having fun with Morse Code. OS11M was on the air from April 15 to May 14 2014 from the club station at UBA-TLS in De Pinte near Gent (JO10TX).
DR20CFT commemorated 20 years of “city friendship and twinning between Traunstein in Germany and Haywards Heath in Great Britain.
LZ867MWB commemorates the Bulgarian saint Mihail Voin. The card also notes that this QSO counts towards the All Bulgarian Saints Award and the St. Teodosii Tyrnovski Award. See www.lz1kcp.com for more information.
QSLs from station whose calls spell words: DJ3AS, PY5UP
I just got a package from the QSL Bureau and found two more QSLs for my collection of QSLs from stations whose calls spell words. Also in the envelope was the card I sent to DL7BY. It was sadly stamped, “SILENT KEY.”