Much like a US State QSO party, the FT8SP FT8 & FT4 Polish Award Program is about making QSOs to Poland’s Provinces.
Today’s Poland has 16 provinces, which is a number that differs when my Prussian ancestors came stateside from Poland in the early 1800’s. The number of provinces has greatly varied from a historic low similar to the present 16 to 49 provinces up to 1998.
Poland’s Provinces (Current)
A few Edits after communicating by email with Yoon HL5BLI
After my morning swim – also a first for the new year – I stopped at my office to do a couple small chores. I ran up my remote Flex-6700 at the home QTH and set it to run FT8 while I watered my plants and fiddled with a new trackball mouse.
Wow – almost right away (after my second CQ K9ZW transmission) I hit a DX QSO from a country that is uncommon when I am working with my vertical on 30m.
It was HL5BLI Soo-won Yoon from Ulsan city, on the south east coast of South Korea. Yoon came in strong and we quickly complete our QSO.
It was really nice that first K9ZW 2021 QSO ended up being a DX QSO, and as I found when I looked up his call on QRZ.com, an all FlexRadio QSO to boot!
Yoon HL5BLI uses a Flex-6400 and I was using a Flex-6700 as we made the 10,400 KM (roughly 6,500 mile) QSO. Later by email Yoon HL5BLI confirmed he was also operating barefoot and that it was also his first QSO of 2021!!
A very good QSO to start off my 2021 radio efforts!
73
Steve
K9ZW
Check this out:
Historic first Trans-Atlantic contact made on 432 MHz – Tues 7th April 2020
https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2020/04/first-trans-atlantic-contact-made-on.html
A 3800 km 70cm FT8 contact!! IC-9700 at 100w into an 18el beam to perhaps the 9el 70m beam usually pointed to Europe at the Cape Verde side.
I think the station on the African side is the D4C Contest Club station which largely uses FlexRadio gear http://d4c.cc/about-us/
The Guadeloupe side is FG8OJ who has a lot of information at: https://fg8oj.com/ and at his QRZ page.
In addition to great propagation there is some suggestion that Sahara Desert Dust added to the ducting.
Congratulations Bertrand FG8OJ and D4VHF (I haven’t found who the D4VHF operator was)!
73
Steve
K9ZW
About a week ago I worked a someone unfamiliar Canadian call sign – one that started with VE0
Learned that this is a series of call issued to “Stations at Sea” – one of less than 600 calls issued in this group.
With more research I also found there is a lot of information in the wiki article on Canadian Call Signs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_signs_in_Canada The most uncommon prefix is VY9 where there are just five call signs issued!
A quick summary Table:
Prefix(es) – Province/Territory
———————————————
VE1 VA1 – Nova Scotia
VE2 VA2 – Quebec
VE3 VA3 – Ontario
VE4 VA4 – Manitoba
VE5 VA5 – Saskatchewan
VE6 VA6 – Alberta
VE7 VA7 – British Columbia
VE8 – Northwest Territories
VE9 – New Brunswick
VE0 – Stations at sea (hams would seem to have a regular call sign as well)
VO1 – Newfoundland
VO2 – Labrador
VY1 – Yukon
VY2 – Prince Edward Island
VY9 – Government of Canada
VY0 – Nunavut
CY0 – Sable Is.
CY9 – St-Paul Is.
All interesting stuff about our good friends to the north!
73
Steve
K9ZW
I’m not enough in-the-know to wish to venture any specific comments on the recently canceled P5 North Korea DXpedition. I do know how hard it is to keep secrets secret even when everyone involved has security clearances, so I must commend the group for how little did leak out for such a long time.
Unfortunately second and third hand accounts did leak, and bloggers chose to run to print, strangely never reaching out to fact check, which if they had the need for no advanced press would have been reaffirmed.
The disconnect between the needs to fundraise and news blackout perhaps could never have been met.
But more importantly should dangerous DX be part of our DXCC program?
Should our DXCC program be tweaked to “suspend” accreditation for other than local residents of an area in a declared state of war? P5 has been for sixty plus years.
Should our DXCC program be tweaked to exclude moonscapes that are uninhabitable?
While accounts of winds so strong we formed a human wall wearing our cold weather survival suits inside the tent as we weather the night seems to cross the line between calculated adventure and needlessly shaking the dice.
Now there is a certain rush a good adventure brings, and I am not immune.
But to be certain a fair number of these dangerous DXpeditions exist largely because of the encouragement hams intending to stay safe at home.
Is that six second QSO really worth it?
Most likely there is no good solution, and it isn’t like anyone forces these DXpeditions to happen.
Maybe there is another way to develop an acceptable risk policy for DXCC, but the one thing I do know is that our current policy violates a personal life rule – I will never ask anyone to take a risk I wouldn’t take personally myself. We’re way past that line and I can not think of a reason why it could be possibly worth it.
73
Steve
K9ZW
Paul N6PSE explains at his blog “Amateur Radio opinions & adventures of N6PSE” why we won’t see many rare DX activated – the ISIS Threat to Amateur Radio!
I would never expect fellow hobbyists to endanger themselves in ISIS controlled DX entities.
Simply not worth it.
For my 2-cents I think we should have a parallel program to the DXCC Program that excludes DX Entities currently considered too dangerous.
There is no QSO and QSL worth paying for with blood.
Link below.
73
Steve K9ZW
The spread of Islamic Terrorism is the biggest threat to DXpeditions of the future.
I often find myself thinking about the future. What kind of world will my children inherit? What will the future be like? What about the future of this great hobby of Amateur Radio and DXing? What does the future hold? What are the challenges ahead and how will we solve them?
Raising enough money to bring a team to a remote and rare destination has been and will always be a challenge. When a large part of the world’s economy is slipping into recession there is considerably less “hobby” money available to support these endeavors. This is understandable and is part of life’s priorities for many of us.
As one of few Americans who has travelled to Sudan, Egypt, South Sudan, Yemen, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey and Iran among many other places all on my own, I have…
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