"The reason for the trouble with SAQ on Christmas Eve was most probably a damaged fuse in the excitation circuit for the 500 V DC generator. The fuse was not completely blown but measured a very high resistance (150 ohm). When we lost the excitation current to the DC generator, we also lost the control current to the choke coils in the conductors to the main motor, and thereby the speed control of the alternator was lost. It was confusing that the problem occurred exactly when we connected the running alternator to the antenna. We were actually on air a few seconds with decreasing frequency until the antenna was disconnected by the protection circuit in the speed control."

Because of the missing Christmas Eve transmission there will be a SAQ test transmission on Tuesday 10th, 2012 at 13:30 UTC. There will only be a transmission with "VVV VVV VVV DE SAQ SAQ SAQ" running for about 30 minutes and no message. There will be no QSL-card exchange for this test.

On November 5th, Wardenclyffe will be on the air as W3T (20 & 40). Tesla's last residence, the New Yorker Hotel will be on the air as N3Y via satellite. The Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia will be on the air as YU0TESLA (20).

There will be two extra transmissions with the Alexanderson alternator on 17.2 kHz because of the United Nations day, Monday October 24, 2011.

The first transmission is a special transmission from young students in Sweden and will start up tuning at about 10:10 UTC and with a message at 10:30 UTC. The second transmission will start up tuning at 17:30 UTC and a message at 18:00 UTC.

QSL-reports on these transmissions are not required.

Hi friends,

28 - 29.7 MHz is completely over-flooded by CIS taxis in FM (Russia, Belorussia and Ukraine). The woman on 28195 is located in Kiev (UKR), the taxi service on 28155 transmitting from Russia. 28200 is also abused by Russian military, F1B, 100 Bd, 150 Hz, vocoder Yakhta synchro signal, located in UFA, Russia. Uli (DJ9KR) and me need few seconds to hear if a language is Russian or Arabic. Arabic voices are very rare on 28 MHz. The last days I found CIS taxis even on 25100. One day they will destroy our 24 MHz band, too.

Another large problem are the Codar HF Radars on 24 MHz. They are transmitting with 2 sweeps/sec, sounding a bit like a pasture fence. (PSE look for the soundfiles on www.iarums-r1.org) K0BOG, Chuck, is interested in such signals. I think we should help him with observations and reports. A worldwide collection of Codars on our bands will help to show the unkind and sometimes bold methods of these people. The signals are stretching over 100 - 500 kHz!!! If you are not sure if you have found a Codar, send me WAV-file (44 kHz sampling rate appreciated - 5 MB no problem). Analysing digital signals on our bands is my daily job.

73 from Wolf DK2OM

PA5R/DJ5MO, PD9DX, ON8AK and ON5UR will activate OJ0UR from Market Reef, August 13 to 20 2011. See their website for full details.

The Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society (ARLHS) is sponsoring its 18th annual ILLW (International Lighthouse-Lightship Weekend) on August 6 & 7. Operating guidelines and scoring details can be found at the ILLW organization web site.

This annual QSO Party is held in conjunction with the International Lighthouse-Lightship Week, August 1 through August 8, and the National Lighthouse Day, August 7th. Further lighthouse information is on the ARLHS web site.

On Thursday, July 14, the UN General Assembly met to vote on whether or not to admit the Republic of South Sudan as its 193rd member state. The Republic of South Sudan was admitted by a vote of acclamation and is now a member of the United Nations.

Now that the Republic of South Sudan is a member of the United Nations, the new country is now a DXCC entity by way of Section II, 1(a) of the DXCC rules. The DXCC Desk will begin immediately accepting QSOs for this new entity, with a start date of July 14, 2011. According to DXCC Manager Bill Moore, NC1L, the Honor Roll numbers move from 340 to 341 for the Top of the Honor Roll, and for Honor Roll it becomes 332. “The deadline for the Honor Roll and annual listings is December 31, so you must submit the new entity to DXCC by then in order to retain your Honor Roll status,” Moore explained. “For Logbook of The World (LoTW), you may submit all your QSOs with the Republic of South Sudan stations anytime. There is no need to hold them out of your log or do anything differently from what you already have been doing. You do not need to assign country names or identifiers. After we issue certificates to the Republic of South Sudan license holders, LoTW will make matches and assign the correct entities automatically.”

As of July 14, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has not announced a prefix block for the Republic of South Sudan. For programmers and others who require use of the DXCC entity code, the code assigned to Republic of South Sudan is 521.

Pour le 5ème anniversaire de l’EUROPEAN PSK CLUB, la station club ON7BR (Belgian Railways Amateurs Radio Club of the FIRAC) activera pendant le mois de juin l’indicatif spécial OR5EPC.

TC1919ATA will be aired 18-20 May, commemorating the arrival of Atatürk in the city of Samsun on May 19, 1919.

Wim OS1T (ON4CIT) will be active from St. Barthelemy Island from 14 to 22 May 2011 as FJ/OS1T. He will be active on 40-6m SSB and RTTY.

QSL via home call direct either bureau.

Marc, ON5SM will be active from Mindanao Island (OC-130), Philippines until 18 May 2011 as DU9/ON5SM. He is active on HF Bands.

Just a short note to inform you that the new IOTA Honor Roll & Annual Listings of Belgian participants of the IOTA programme can be viewed here.

73 - ON4CAS - IOTA Benelux Checkpoint

The CQ Manchester Mineira DX Contest (CQMM DX Contest) is a continuation of the popular and successful Manchester Mineira All America CW Contest, being organized and established by the Group CWJF since 1993. The competition was initially limited to Brazil (1993-1996), later expanded to South America (1997-2006) and finally extended to the Americas (2007-2010). From 2011, it becomes an international competition held among all continents.

The city of Juiz de Fora is so-called "Manchester Mineira" (The Manchester of the State of Minas Gerais) for being one of the most industrialized cities in Latin America.