Crete QRV in June 2024

The 6M/4M SV9 DXpedition by DK5EW was scheduled to end June 20. Were you able to put the mountainous Greek island of Crete in your logbook by making some magic on 6 meters? We hope so.

About the size of Puerto Rico at 3,260 square miles, Crete ranked as the 274^th Most Wanted DXCC Entity per Clublog as of June, 2024.

While not exactly a rare entity, this popular tourist locale is certainly one of the most thrilling, featuring archaeological sites, a Venetian castle, stunning islands, and Europe’s largest natural palm forest. It’s no wonder that DXpeditioners find it a welcome spot to set up shop and reach out to the world.

Today we’ll be looking at a few of the QSL cards the active hams at DX Engineering have earned over the years from both permanent and temporary operations on Crete.

Crete’s QSO Machine

Crete is home to Michael Dimitrikakis, SV9CVY, who is widely recognized as the island’s most active ham. Appropriately nicknamed “The Big Gun of Crete,” he commands four impressive antenna towers covering 160 to 2M from his QTH near Rethymno (population of around 39,000). SV9CVY is one of approximately 200 to 3oo amateur radio licensees on the island.

Dave, K8DV, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, reached SV9CVY in March 2007 on 20M SSB and in February 2018 on 160M FT8.

Tom, KB8UUZ, DX Engineering technical writer, received the card below from SV9CVY. As a paraplegic, SV9CVY raises awareness by including this important message on his QSL cards: “Help the Handi-Hams Near You. They need your support.”

As noted on his QRZ.com page, SV9CVY graduated from the City University of New York in 1988 with a degree in electrical engineering, worked in New York and New Jersey for a few years, and moved to Greece in 1993. He received his amateur radio license the following year. Here he is featured on the cover of the April 2018 issue of QST magazine.

He wrote on QRZ.com,“The very best part of this hobby is the PEOPLE you meet and the longtime close friendships that happen as a result of the common interest in Amateur Radio.”

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Wayne, K8FF, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, received the card below from SV9/OH9MM.

For all your DXing, contesting, or rag-chewing needs—whether you’re a Big Gun, Little Pistol, or somewhere in between, visit DXEngineering.com for transceivers, amplifiers, antennas, headsets, and so much more.

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Editor’s Note: Every month, DX Engineering features QSL cards from our team members’ personal collections. To highlight upcoming DXpeditions, we’ll be displaying a few of our favorite cards along with details about what it took to make these contacts. We’re excited to share some of the special cards pulled from the thousands we’ve received over the years. We look forward to seeing your cards as well!

The post It’s All in the Cards! QSL Cards from Crete appeared first on OnAllBands.

Mozambique QRV in June 2024

For those still trying to add the Republic of Mozambique (C9) to your list of DXCC entities this month, there’s still a window of opportunity. The C91AHV DXpedition by CT7AHV is scheduled to run until June 15, 2024. Chasers can reach CT7AHV on 40, 20, 15, 10, and 6M in SSB, CW, and FT8.

Located in southeast Africa, Mozambique is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Africa to the southwest. It is separated from the Comoros, Mayotte, and Madagascar by the Mozambique Channel to the east. As of May 2024, Mozambique ranked as the 113^th Most Wanted DXCC Entity per Clublog.

Not Far from the Glorioso Islands

The rarely activated Glorioso Islands, which is scheduled to be on the air until June 19, 2024 thanks to the single-operator, DX Engineering-sponsored FT4GL DXpedition, lies in the northern part of the Mozambique Channel about 900 miles from Mozambique.

About Mozambique

For the sake of comparison, Mozambique (309, 475 square miles, population 35 million) is moderately larger than Texas (268,600 square miles, population 30 million). But while Texas is the second largest and second most populated U.S. state, Mozambique ranks as the 16^th largest African nation (35^th largest in the world) and the 14^th most populated in Africa. Of course this is not a fair comparison, as Africa has a population of close to 1.46 billion—which leads us to the OnAllBands Geography Question of the Day. Can you correctly list the world’s continents by population from the most to least populated? Answer below.

Bonus Question!

In honor of the letter “Q,” one of the most prominent and important letters in the ham radio world, can you name the countries other than Mozambique that have the letter “Q” in their name? Hint: There are three answers to this quagmire of a query.

QSL Cards

The active hams at DX Engineering have had great success contacting Mozambique over the years (a good reason to contact them for help with your gear if you’d like to do the same). Here are a few of the QSL cards from their collections.

Wayne, K8FF, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, worked C92RU in 2021.

Tom, KB8UUZ, DX Engineering technical writer, received this card from C92CC.

Dave, K8DV, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, reached C91TX operating from Bilene in April 2009 on 17M CW. Bilene is a beach resort town in southern Mozambique on the Mozambique Channel about 86 miles northeast of Maputo, the country’s capital and largest city.

I’ll take “Facts about the Continents” for $1,000, Ken.

So, were you able to list the continents from the most populated to the least? Got Asia, Australia, and Antarctica with no problem, huh? Yeah, we figured you would.

• Asia: 4.75 billion
• Africa: 1.46 billion
• Europe: 74o million
• North America: 604 million
• South America: 439 million
• Australia/Oceania 46 million
• Antarctica: Zero (Scientists and support staff live for part of the year in Antarctica on a rotating basis, but there is no permanent human population.)

Now to our bonus question. Mozambique has the letter “Q” in its name. Can you name the nations that also include a Q?

• Qatar
• Iraq
• Equatorial Guinea

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If you’re looking for quick and quality answers to boost your DXing qualifications, you’ll find lots of help from the hams at DX Engineering, plus everything you need to upgrade your station at DXEngineering.com, including transceivers, amplifiers, antennas, headsets, the QRM Eliminator, and more.

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Editor’s Note: Every month, DX Engineering features QSL cards from our team members’ personal collections. To highlight upcoming DXpeditions, we’ll be displaying a few of our favorite cards along with details about what it took to make these contacts. We’re excited to share some of the special cards pulled from the thousands we’ve received over the years. We look forward to seeing your cards as well!

The post It’s All in the Cards! QSL Cards from Mozambique appeared first on OnAllBands.

Glorioso Islands QRV in May/June

Have you had any luck contacting Marek, FH4VVK, who is operating from Grande Glorioso Island as FT4GL? We hope you’ve been able to add this rare one to your DXCC list. If not, you’ve still got plenty of time. FH4VVK is scheduled to be active from Glorioso Islands—a 1.9-square-mile French overseas territory about 120 miles northwest of Madagascar—until June 19, 2024 on 160-6M in SSB, RTTY, and FT4/FT8.

While the Glorioso Islands’ DXCC ranking is certain to change by the end of FT4GL’s run, it is currently ranked #7 globally, #3 in South America, #6 in Asia, #15 in Europe, #17 in Africa, #4 in Oceania, and #2 on North America’s West Coast per Clublog. Glorioso Islands was last officially on the air in September/October 2009 during the five-operator, 23-day FT5GA DXpedition (see QSL card below), which netted 50,000-plus CW, SSB, and digital QSOs.

DX Engineering has provided FT4GL with VA6AM 150W PEP HF Band Pass Filters for 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10M to help make more QSOs possible. These high-quality, multi-stage inline passive band pass filters are specifically designed to limit the transmitting and receiving RF passband to a single amateur band. Find more VA6AM products at DXEngineering.com, including a range of VA6AM band pass filters, diplexers, and triplexers.

Need to upgrade your setup for better performance on ARRL Field Day (June 22 to 23, 2024)? Here’s something to consider: If VA6AM Band Pass Filters are the equipment of choice for an extremely rare activation, imagine how they will work for your temporary stations in the field!

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Quick Facts About the Glorioso Islands

• The islands are geographically part of the Comoros Islands between the French overseas region of Mayotte Island and Madagascar (click links for QSL cards from each entity).
• The islands are controlled by France as part of the Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean in the French Southern and Antarctic Lands. They are also claimed by Comoros and Madagascar.
• To protect the Islands’ endangered flora and fauna, France founded a 17,000-square-mile marine protected area known as Glorioso Islands Marine Natural Park. Due to its isolation, the park is particularly useful for the study of climate change and the area’s marine biodiversity.

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QSL Cards from the Glorioso Islands

While infrequently activated, the Glorioso Islands have been reached by several of the hams at DX Engineering over the years. Here are a few of the QSL cards from their collections, from the oldest to the most recent.

Wayne, K8FF, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, received the card below from the FR7ZP DXpedition in November 1966—one of the earliest amateur radio ventures to the Glorioso Islands. The DXpedition was sponsored by the World Radio Propagation Study Association (WRPSA), an organization that served as a hub for collecting and disbursing donations to fund these seminal activations. The association also analyzed the logs of DXpeditioners (Gus Browning, W4BPD; Don Miller, W9WNV; et. al.) to provide insight on propagation conditions of previously unstudied locations for the benefit of hams everywhere.

FR7ZP’s operator was W9WNV, one of the most famous and influential DXpeditioners of all time. K8FF made an SSB QSO with W9WNV using his old call, K8WOT.

“I worked him (W9WNV) from a number of places over his career of DXpeditions,” K8FF said. “My first QSO with him was when he was stationed in Korea. His call at that time was HL9KH. He was an excellent CW operator and during operations would frequently answer three or four stations at a time causing much confusion for those that couldn’t figure it out! For a while he joined up with Chuck (Swain), K7LMU, going to various places. Unfortunately, Chuck was lost at sea returning from a DXpedition.*

“There are probably 25 or 30 QSLs in my file from Gus Browning, W4BPD, another great CW operator. Those were good times for us just starting in DXing back in the 1960s.”

* Editor’s note: K7LMU and Ted Thorpe, ZL2AWJ, were never seen again after they set out to sea following the 1966 FW8ZZ DXpedition from Wallis Island.

Scotty, KG9Z, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, received this card from the January 1987 FR/G/FH4ED Glorioso Island DXpedition.

Tom, KB8UUZ, DX Engineering technical writer, received the card below from the September/October 2009 FT5GA activation from Grande Glorioso Island.

Dave, K8DV, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, also reached FT5GA’s team of French military operators (30/15M CW; 20M SSB).

Want to upgrade your DXing capabilities? Find everything you need at DX Engineering, including transceivers, amplifiers, antennas, headsets, and more.

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Editor’s Note: Every month, DX Engineering features QSL cards from our team members’ personal collections. To highlight upcoming DXpeditions, we’ll be displaying a few of our favorite cards along with details about what it took to make these contacts. We’re excited to share some of the special cards pulled from the thousands we’ve received over the years. We look forward to seeing your cards as well!

The post It’s All in the Cards! QSL Cards from the Glorioso Islands appeared first on OnAllBands.

Bolivia QRV in May 2024

The multi-operator CP7DX DXpedition from Bolivia is scheduled to be active until May 19. Chasers hoping to capture an ATNO or fill bands with this landlocked country in western-central South America will have an excellent opportunity on 160-6M in SSB, CW, FT4/FT8, and satellites (SSB and FM). The Argentinian operators will be employing a range of gear, including Icom transceivers (IC-9700 VHF/UHF/1.2 GHz and others), Yaesu and Elecraft rigs, and Ameritron amplifiers.

Bordered by Brazil to the north and east, Paraguay to the southeast, Argentina to the south, Chile to the southwest, and Peru to the west, Bolivia (officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia) has a population of close to 12.2 million and a total area of 424,164 square miles—larger than Texas (216,193 square miles) and smaller than Alaska (665,400 square miles). In August 1825, the country was named after Simón Bolívar, a Venezuelan leader in the Spanish American wars of independence.

Bolivia was ranked as the 186^th Most Wanted DXCC Entity per Clublog as of April.

QSL Cards

The active hams at DX Engineering have had great success contacting Bolivia over the years (a good reason to contact them for help with your gear if you’d like to do the same). Here are a few of the QSL cards from their collections.

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Wayne, K8FF, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, worked CP5EZ in January 1963.

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Tom, KB8UUZ, DX Engineering technical writer, received this card from CP8XA.

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Dave, N8NB, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, received the QSL card below from CP4BT in March 2013. It features a llama—Bolivia’s national animal. There are more than three million llamas in Bolivia, accounting for over 60% of the world’s llama population. Like other members of the camel family in Bolivia (alpacas, guanacos, vicuñas), the llama plays a key role in the country’s economy and culture, as well as in the livelihoods of its inhabitants.

Tupiza, the QTH of the CP4BT DXpedition, is a town in southern Bolivia, where, according to historical accounts, American outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid passed through on their way to their deaths, glamorized in the Tinseltown depiction starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman.

Different from the guns-blazing, Hollywoodized shootout that ends the 1969 movie that bears their nicknames, it is believed the two men, cornered by Bolivian soldiers, died in 1908 in San Vicente, Bolivia, either during a gunfight or by self-inflicted wounds after being badly injured, as detailed in a March 2007 article in the Miami Herald.

Butch Cassidy (born Robert LeRoy Parker in Utah, 1866) and the Sundance Kid (born Harry Longabaugh in Pennsylvania, 1867) would meet up and become partners in crime, robbing several banks in the U.S. before fleeing to Argentina in 1901. While in South America, they bought a farm and went on the straight and narrow until 1905. The duo fled to Chile when authorities accused them of a robbery they apparently didn’t commit. “By 1908, they had turned up in Tupiza,” according to the article. Soldiers and civilians began hunting the pair after they robbed a mining company payroll. On November 6 they arrived in San Vicente, where a four-man posse barged into the adobe hut where they were lodging. Accounts differ as to what happened next, but historians agree that this was the spot where the bandits met their end.

Today, San Vicente (population of about 100 per a 2000 census) is “three to five hours by car over dirt roads from Tupiza, depending on whether sudden squalls turn dry creek beds into raging rivers,” according to the article. The town is home to a mining company and a Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid museum.

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Dave, K8DV, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, reached CP1FF in May 2007 on 15M SSB. George, K3GP, customer/technical support specialist, contacted CP1FF in September 2000 on 15M RTTY.

Want to upgrade your DXing capabilities? Find everything you need at DX Engineering, including transceivers, amplifiers, antennas, headsets, and more.

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Editor’s Note: Every month, DX Engineering features QSL cards from our team members’ personal collections. To highlight upcoming DXpeditions, we’ll be displaying a few of our favorite cards along with details about what it took to make these contacts. We’re excited to share some of the special cards pulled from the thousands we’ve received over the years. We look forward to seeing your cards as well!

The post It’s All in the Cards! QSL Cards from Bolivia appeared first on OnAllBands.

 Well not a lot has been going on radio wise the last month, except for a few FT8 QSOs here and there. I started an EMT class on the 17th that has been keeping me pretty busy! I may start trying to chat a little on my way to Ashland every now and then.

I've been working on updating the firmware and codeplugs on my radios (some were long overdue!). I've added a few repeaters to my Anytone 878, including a couple of DMR repeaters near Ashland that I didn't know were there (I still need to add them to the CS 800D in the car). Now I just need to use them!  

I think the last of my QSL cards for the 13 Colonies Event came in. All of them should now be viewable in the QSL Archive. My Certificate came in as well. It looks great! I'm thinking about framing my certificates with their QSL cards for each year, I think it would be nice to hang up! 

2020 13 Colonies Certificate

In my last post I mentioned waiting for full results from the Kentucky QSO Party. Well they were finally posted. My final score of 3,036 points put me at 19 out 35 in my category (Single Op-Low), 24th out of 44 for just Single Op and 33rd out of 54 overall. Not bad for my first showing! Next year I hope to do even better.

I been thinking about adding another antenna to my setup. A simple dipole for 10m. I know a lot of people in my area talk on 10 pretty regularly so I'd like to have a dedicated antenna to use. I have everything (I think) I need to build one. Plus the pulley on my mast is empty since I moved the G5RV. I just need the time to get around to it! Eventually I'll add a 2nd G5RV but that's not an option right now.

One last thing: Please feel free to share my blog and website to someone who may be interested! 

Well that's all for now. Hopefully I'll have more for the next update! 

73 

Cam