Easter Island Heads
It was pretty exciting being able to work Easter Island. There is currently a DXpedition operating CW only from the island. I am not sure how rare of DXCC entity Easter Island is, but it is exotic. When I think of exotic places, Easter Island is near the top of my list.
I hope everyones gets the opportunity to bag this one. The British operators are doing a fantastic job controlling the pileup.
73,
Fred
A large meteor caught on video over Russia. Here is one of the videos that have been posted on YouTube.
Here is a good article about the meteor. Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog discusses the meteor that came down in Russia in this article: Bad Astronomy Blog.
I hope some Russian hams were able to operate some Meteor Scatter propagation on VHF.
73,
Fred
I spent the evening in the shack catching up on QSLing. I had a stack of cards I have received that needed to be marked as confirmed in my logbook. I also have a large stack of bureau cards that I also need to mark as confirmed in DXLab. However the bureau cards take a quit a bit longer because many of them are requesting return cards which need to be queued and processed using Global QSL. The process involves preparing an ADIF file which I upload to Global QSL. After asking a few questions the cards are printed and sent to the appropriate bureau. I generally do not use the bureau when I really need a return card. Many DX stations and QSL managers do not respond to bureau cards. I always verify the QSL route through QRZ.com or the DX news letters before I send a card. My return rate on bureau cards is probably less than 20%. My QSL rate with LoTW is over 40%. My return rate on direct QSLs with SAE and green stands is well over 80% so far. OQRS seems to be the best way to QSL if your willing to invest the $2-4 for the card. Of course that is a reasonable cost when compared to the cost of a QSL I mail via international air mail with $2 of green stamps. I have had a 100% return rate on OQRS cards thus far. While i worked on the QSLs I listened to the bands and worked a little DX.
The next thing I did was start the process of upgrading the hard drive in my shack computer to a Solid State Drive. I installed the new drive but I put off the cloning of my C drive to the new drive until tomorrow since I wanted to clean up my C drive and defrag it before cloning the data to the new SSD. The SSD should significantly boost the responsiveness of my computer; especially when running N1MM. I’ll report on the improvement once I complete the upgrade.
73,
Fred