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Propagation on 10m today is as good as I can remember. I made a few nice contacts using SSB including Japan, India and Bahrain. I heard several Chinese stations as well but have yet to work one.

Not really DX but a new country for me was Albania, in the shape of Dik, ZA1E. Decades ago as a teenaged short wave listener I remember hearing Radio Tirana, a huge signal on 7.065MHz, smack in the middle of the 40m phone band. I wonder whether anyone ever listened to its broadcasts? They were pure anti-capitalist tirades read by a woman announcer who sounded like she had a beard and no sense of humour. They actually used phrases like “capitalist running dogs” if I remember correctly. At least Radio Moscow tried to make life on the other side of the iron curtain sound attractive.

I don’t think there was any ham radio activity in communist Albania and there still aren’t all that many hams there now so I was pleased to work Dik for a new one.

Please read Part 1 for the beginning of the story and some background.

Based on the information that I’d previously described, I sent an email to the Logbook of The World (LoTW) desk at the ARRL in mid-June briefly explaining what I’d learned and asking what would be needed for them to issue a certificate so that I could upload my contacts. (Briefly, each contact is “signed” using a digital certificate to ensure that it’s valid. The ARRL issues a certificate to an operator when it is satisfied that the contacts were made legally.) I got a quick response back which referred me to the ARRL’s Reciprocal Operating page which gives the requirements needed to operate from different locations around the world.  The information provided for that page links to OH2MCN’s terrific site that has details for hundreds of countries. The information on his site is largely provided by hams who have operated from those locations, but sometimes it’s not always completely up to date. (As an example, you can see my contribution to the entry for the Cayman Islands, which in turn has been updated since I wrote to Veke.)  Unfortunately, the information for Costa Rica did not include the updated details regarding SUTEL (and still doesn’t as of the time that I’m writing this.) I responded back to both the LoTW desk and the DXCC desk (since the DXCC desk is ultimately responsible for determining if an operation is “legal”), but did not hear back from them prior to leaving for Costa Rica.

After I returned, I electronically requested a certificate for my operation. As with most operations from other that a home country, I was advised that I needed to contact the ARRL with the required supporting documentation. I sent another note to the DXCC desk in early August again explaining the situation but after a couple of weeks of no response, I sent a note to Joyce, KA2ANF, my Division Director who did whatever magic Division Directors do and got me a reply form the DXCC desk. Unfortunately, the reply was substantially the same as the initial responses that I’d gotten back (referring me to the Reciprocal Operation page) and didn’t address the changes in the licensing authority. It said that even though their information was outdated, that I’d need a license or some other documentation from the local licensing authority.

At this point, it occurred to me that many of the people who I’d emailed or spoken to had operated recently from Costa Rica, certainly within the last two years, and several had been issued LoTW certificates. Since there was precedent, I figured that the best way to find out how they had gotten their certificates was to ask, so I gathered up a list of email addresses, and sent out an email, that said in part:

…I noticed that you have recently uploaded contacts from a Costa Rica operation to LoTW, and I was wondering if you’d recently obtained a certificate without a paper license, or if you had a previously-issued license that was used to obtain your certificate. To be honest, I’m hoping that you might fall into the first category meaning that there is precedent for my certificate to be issued under the same conditions.

Over the next couple of days, I got back responses from pretty much everyone I wrote to (and some that I didn’t; my note got passed on to a few others who I hadn’t originally written) and the story from each of them was the same: No, SUTEL wasn’t issuing licenses but it was OK to operate from Costa Rica as long as you were in the country legally and had an appropriate US license. N0KE, AA8HH, N0SXX, and K4VAC (which is a club) all confirmed that they’d been issued LoTW certificates based on the “new” information about licensing. Better still, I received information from several hams that included emails between themselves, the ARRL, and in some cases, between Keko, TI5KD, the president of the Radio Club de Costa Rica where the licensing information was explained and accepted as valid by the ARRL.

I wrote another note to the DXCC desk and provided this information, and waited. After another couple of weeks, I sent a reminder note (I know those guys are busy, and my issue certainly wasn’t a big one) and got a response back. They’d started to investigate, and would be getting back to me. I felt that at least they were finally reading what I’d written and there was hope. Just a few hours later, and I got back another email telling me that my operation was accepted and a LoTW certificate would be issued shortly. (It was.)

I’d like to thank everyone that I mentioned here for their help in getting through all this. In particular, Keko, TI5KD  was very patient in explaining the situation and helping me to be confident that I would eventually get through the red tape.

On a final note, I realized that in the spirit of “giving back” to the ham community, the best thing that I could do would be to get the information on OH2MCN’s site updated, so I’ll be writing to him shortly with the details that I’ve provided here (though in a more concise form).

It was a lot more difficult than I’d expected, but I finally received official approval from the ARRL’s DXCC desk for my TI7/K2DBK operation earlier this year. I’ve been holding off writing about it until I had resolution, one way or another, hence the delay in writing this.The issue had to do with the licensing authority in Costa Rica. Here’s the story as I understand it.

A couple of years ago, the organization responsible for issuing all radio licenses in Costa Rica was reorganized. That organization, SUTEL, apparently revised the laws regarding all radio services in Costa Rica, but somehow they neglected to revise the rules pertaining to amateur radio. In fact, they didn’t include rules about amateur radio at all after the rules revision. As a result, they had no way to issue or renew any amateur licenses, regardless of whether those licenses were for residents of Costa Rica or for visitors. As I understand it, this was an oversight, not an intentional removal of the amateur service from Costa Rica.  Previously, for a US amateur to operate from Costa Rica, you’d have to fill out some forms and pay a nominal fee at the SUTEL offices in the capital city of San José and you’d walk out with your license. Unfortunately, after the laws were revised, there simply wasn’t a way to get a license.

I didn’t know any of this earlier this year when I decided to operate from Costa Rica. My concern was that you had to physically go to the SUTEL office in San Jose to get your license.

The location where we stay in Costa Rica is in the northwest portion of the country near the city of Liberia, and it’s a pretty significant drive to San Jose.  (The green marker is where I was staying, the blue is San Jose.)  Although Costa Rica isn’t a very large country, a multi-hour drive through a country where I didn’t speak the language (and where were weren’t planning to rent a car) just didn’t seem very appealing. What I thought I would do is to post to a couple of the DX lists to ask if perhaps there was a way to get a license online, or perhaps to see if there was someone in Costa Rica who could do the paperwork for me in advance, and mail it to me either at home or where we were staying. I got back multiple responses, both from US hams who’d recently operated from there as well as a couple of hams who live in Costa Rica, all of whom told me about the situation with SUTEL.

Among those responses were a couple that said that based on conversations between the ARRL and the Radio Club de Costa Rica  there was a working agreement in place so that for amateurs from countries that had reciprocal operating agreements in place with Costa Rica (the US does), that as long as the visiting amateur is in the country legally (a copy of a passport stamp can be used to prove this) and they held an appropriate US license (I hold an Amateur Extra class license). they can operate legally from Costa Rica. The only other requirement is to use the appropriate regional prefix, which for my operation was TI7, indicating the Guanacaste region. Based on that, I operated as I’ve previously described, and assumed that I’d have no trouble having my operation officially approved for DXCC credit (for others, of course) and getting a Logbook of The World certificate, necessary to upload my QSOs to that system. As I said, it turned out to be a bit more of a challenge than I’d expected.

To be continued…

Or…So this is where all the cool DX hangs out!  But I thought that title was a bit too long and opted for the shorter version. 

When I arrived home with my signed CSCE on Saturday, 28 August I did want to run downstairs and spin the dial into the extra class portion of 20m and work a station (contest or otherwise) as KD0BIK/AE.  However, I also wanted to make sure I treated my #1 supporter in this hobby to lunch and spend the day with her doing some of the things she wanted to do.  I’ve spent so much time over the past few weeks with my head in a book or on the PC, Laptop or iPad taking practice exams.  So we went to lunch and then spent a few hours digging through antique shops. 

After dinner and also somewhat tired/bored of watching Geraldo get blown around the streets of NYC, I decided I would head down and see what was happening on the ham bands.  This was around 20:00 local (02:00 UTC).  The 20m band was alive with activity with the Ohio and Hawaii QSO parties.  I worked about three Hawaii stations and one Ohio station and then spent about 30 minutes trying to work W9IMS.  While I had missed working them in May for the 500, I did work them in July for the Brickyard 400.  Next year I’ll plan to try to score the Trifecta and work all three special event stations for that special certificate. 

Anyway, I finally gave up on W9IMS and decided to see if the Yaesu FT-950 VFO would turn down past 14.225.  I should have stopped by Ham Radio Outlet on the way home from the VE session to have them check the serial number on my 950 to determine if it had the pre-installed AE module installed.  Ha ha ha

While I had occasionally turned the VFO down below 14.225, it was not something I did often.  I do a lot more listening than I do talking on my radio, but I guess I just always thought I would just listen on the band segments I actually could operate on.  Plus this was a built in safety net incase I heard a really rare DX calling and my excitement clouded by vision of double-checking what frequency I had been listening to.  In any event, my FT-950 tunes down nicely below 14.225 and on Saturday evening, my ears were certainly surprised at all that I heard. 

In just a matter of minutes I managed to work CT9/RW9JZ operating from Maderia Island, then I worked RJ3AA in Moscow, a few minutes later I worked RG4F in Kuznetsk, Russia.  I closed my DX hunting down by adding CO6LC in Cuba.  This was the first time I had worked Cuba on SSB phone. 

Now I’m just wearing out the FCC ULS search watching for my upgrade to be noted.  This VE Team did state it should appear within a few days so I’m sort of thinking Wednesday, Thursday or hopefully on Friday.  It would certainly be nice to have that record showing as extra class prior to the Colorado QSO party coming up this weekend.  But for now, I’ll continue to be KD0BIK/AE.

Until next time…

73 de KD0BIK/AE

The fine weather we have enjoyed for several weeks was forecast to change, so on Wednesday Olga and I decided to take the bus and go for a picnic lunch by Bassenthwaite Lake. For radio entertainment I took the UV-3R (in case of any SOTA or WOTA activations) and the FT-817ND.

HF conditions were pretty dire – WWV has been predicting blackouts – and I initially heard nothing above 20m. But even though I called the loudest stations that weren’t calling “CQ DX outside Europe” no-one even acknowledged my existence. (What’s wrong with working stations inside Europe, I’d like to know, especially when no-one is replying to your CQs anyway?)

The antenna I was using, the Wonder Wand L-Whip, could have been better. It does, however, have the advantage that it is small and light. At the moment I can’t carry much, needing one hand for my walking stick and the other for balance, so everything has to fit in a small shoulder bag. So I didn’t have anything else suitable.

The UV-3R produced a contact with Terry, G0VWP/P activating Walla Crag, the lowest Wainwright, prompting Olga to comment that the small radio was better than the big one!

After lunch I tuned around some more and heard some activity on 15m and 17m. And whilst tuning 17m I stumbled across this. Actually, that’s what I heard a couple of minutes later after I’d dug my smartphone out of my jacket pocket to make the recording using Voice Recorder. What I heard first was ZD8D (Ascension Island) calling CQ. Repeatedly. With no takers. He was not very strong – about S4 on the ‘817 S-meter – with some QSB, but perfectly clear. Clearer in fact than in the recording. I called, but needless to say he didn’t hear me.

As I’ve said before, I have little interest in working stations just to tick countries off a list. But I have a particular interest in the British colonies of Ascension Island and St. Helena as I visited both places during a “trip of a lifetime” in 1999 but have never worked either of them. Just my luck to come across a DX station calling CQ with no pileup when I’m surrounded by mountains and running just 5W to an extremely inefficient antenna!

This is part 2 of the series, click here to read part 1 

It’s been another crazy week at work and at home and I’d hoped to have another entry or two posted by now, but I just haven’t had the time. I’ve finally found a few minutes, so I’d like to focus on things from a DX perspective and talk a bit about QSLing.

As I’ve previously noted, the weather kept the total number of contacts far lower than I’d hoped, with the total number of contacts ending up at 87 for the week (including one duplicate who I helped out with an antenna check). It looks like I worked 22 different countries though I believe that one of those will be a busted call: I logged a caller with a “DX” prefix which would correspond to the Philippines but at the time I was working into Europe and I suspect that it’s actually a “DL” call. In terms of “best DX”, I worked into European Russia (UA) and Ukraine (UT) a few times, with the majority of the countries being in central Europe such as Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, and others in that area. I worked relatively few US states, though I don’t have good statistics on the because I didn’t get the state from all the operators that I worked. Most of the stateside contacts tended to be in the US Southwest although I did work up into Virginia and farther up the US East Coast for a few contacts.

As I mentioned in my last post, I did manage to get a full-blown pileup going a few times, and I can really understand how addicting this can be. I’d love to be able to operate from a “real” DXpedition, or even from a “primarily radio” vacation somewhere, but for now my vacation time is limited so I tend to squeeze in radio when I can. I hope that at some point over the next year or two I can get creative and find time away for a “radio” vacation.

Regarding QSLing, I got a question this week from a station asking me about whether the contacts would be uploaded to Logbook of The World. As regular readers of this blog know, I’m a big fan of LoTW, and would love to make the contacts available there. However, I’m having some issues getting a LoTW certificate issued and it’s not clear when (or if) that issue will be resolved. (This only applies to my operating from TI7.) In the meantime, if you need a card, please QSL via my home call the “old fashioned” way with a paper card. Because of the relatively few contacts made, I’m not going to have a bunch of card commercially printed but I will design and print a card specifically for this operation. My QSL information is always kept up to date at my entry on qrz.com.

If you want to check to see if you’re in my TI7 log, I’ve uploaded that to the Clublog website which you can search here. If you think you worked me and you can’t find your entry in the online log, please drop me a note and I’ll check for you as it’s entirely possible that I busted a call or two.

It’s been a very busy week for me both at work and at home following my vacation, so it’s taken me a while to find the time to start writing this. I’d hoped to provide a few more updates while I was in Costa Rica but I never found the time so I’ll do my best to try to remember what happened. I’m going to try write a number of shorter postings so hopefully I can get them all out over the next couple of days.

In my last posting, I’d talked about how it had been rainy all week. That weather continued, but I finally did figure out a way to get on the air for more than 10 minutes at a time.

The problem was that my initial setup was on part of the outdoor deck with everything exposed to the elements. I would have been happy to bring the feedline inside, but the air conditioning system in the house we were staying at has sensors such that you can’t leave the sliding doors open even a little without the system shutting down. Considering the temperature and humidity, that wasn’t a realistic option, so I had to operate outside and hope for the best. In the picture, you can see the antenna in the background and I’ve got the power supply sitting on the chair with the radio on a little table. As long as it was dry, this worked out fine. Unfortunately, it didn’t stay dry long enough for me to spend any significant time on the air.

On Friday afternoon, the weather was once again uncooperative, and I was starting to think that I’d wind up leaving Costa Rica with only about 5 QSOs. However, Sharon pointed out that the deck next to the common area of the house had a pretty big overhang, and I realized that even with some of the really torrential downpours we’d had that area had stayed dry. I moved down to that location and set up the antenna there, configured for 15m, and brought out the rest of the gear to the new location.

Sure enough, after a few minutes of respite the skies opened up again, but although the antenna was getting wet, the radio, power supply, and my iPad (used for logging) were dry. (As you can see from the photo, I did have a towel ready, just in case.) I got on 15m at just about 21:00Z and called CQ and was answered by a station in Brazil. Being in Costa Rica, that wasn’t quite the DX that I was hoping for, but very shortly after that I got spotted on the DX Clusters and started getting a lot of calls from Europe. All told, I was on the air for about 40 minutes (we had plans and I had to get ready) and worked 33 stations that day. (I’ll have some details about the countries I worked in a future posting.) Although I’ve worked from a DX location before (as ZF2DK), this was the first time that I ever had what I would consider to be a full-blow pileup. I think that I did fairly well in managing things, managing to at least get enough of a partial call so that I could respond back with “the station ending in xyz only please” on almost every call. I don’t have enough experience yet to be able to pull full callsigns out of a pileup every time, but I know that’s something that comes with experience. By the second day of running stations, I could tell that I was doing better.

Part 2 of this series continues here.