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The Mediterraneo DX Club’s DXpedition to Nepal will start this week.

The international DXpedition team will be on air as 9N7MD between November 12-27th. Operations will be on 160-10 meters using CW, SSB and RTTY.

QSL Manager is IK2VUC for direct, by the Bureau or the OQRS cards (see the Web page). The LoTW files will be uploaded by the end of March 2012 (four months after QRT).

Activity will also include an entry in the CQWW DX CW Contest as 9N7DX. QSL via 4Z4DX.

Suggested frequencies are:
CW – 1826.5, 3505, 7005, 10105, 14025, 18075, 21025, 24895 and 28025
SSB – 1840, 3799, 7080, 14200, 18145, 21295, 24950 and 28470
RTTY – 3600, 7040, 10140, 14085, 18100, 21080, 24930 and 28085 kHz

For more details and updates, visit the “NEPAL11” Web page at: http://www.mdxc.org/nepal2011

Source: OPDX Bulletin 1035.1 November 7, 2011

The log processing delay for Logbook of The World (LoTW) remains at approximately 60 hours, with approximately 8000 logs queued for processing. Please do not upload the same log more than once.

According to ARRL IT Manager Michael Keane, K1MK, the League has implemented an interim “fast lane” for processing logs: “In order to do this, resources have been shifted from servicing interactive requests to the processing of logs. As a result, LoTW users may notice some sluggish performance. Since these changes have been put into place, the number of logs waiting to be processed has been reduced by approximately 20 percent. The expectation is that this new measure will continue to make inroads into eliminating the backlog.”

From the RSGB…

To ensure we have the appropriate facilities available at the EGM, the Society is seeking indications of how approximately many plan to attend the event.

If you plan to attend, would you please go to www.rsgb.org/attend and enter your details. This will help ensure that we can handle the number planning to be present.

And finally, if you plan to arrive at Birmingham International by train, you should be aware that there is a free telephone inside the station arrivals hall (next to the Subway restaurant) with a “Hilton” logo on it, to summon the courtesy bus to take you to EGM venue.

Please would you draw this note to the attention of others in your club/committee who might be planning to attend.

Many thanks

Don Beattie, G3BJ
Acting General Manager

Stuart Holland (2E0SUL) from Thermographic Consultancy Ltd, provides a brief insight to the world of IRT (Infrared Thermography). The evenings events will consist of a presentation to demonstrate what IRT is, its many applications and why in the electrical industry plus many others has been adopted as a key part of predictive maintenance and condition monitoring.

For those of you craving a feed for the technical side of your minds, there shall be plenty of information about the equipment, how its constructed, what makes it work and demonstrations to provide a little more interest. Come and see the practical demonstrations and the magic of what the eye can’t see, perhaps even consider how IRT may help assist you in many of your own fields of expertise.

The team are now back in Honolulu. Provisional T32C QSO statistics are:


Total QSOs: 213,169
Total Uniques 48,914
CW QSOs 102,216
SSB QSOs 88,416
FM QSOs 1,765
RTTY QSOs 19,225
PSK31 QSOs 13
PSK63 QSOs 1,506

Africa 1,128 QSOs
Asia 35,081 QSOs
Europe 59,692 QSOs
North America 109,327 QSOs
Oceania 4,214 QSOs
South America 3,691 QSOs


We believe there are least 10 new world records in the totals, plus there is the possibility that some of the 6m QSOs were ‘firsts’.

73, good DX, and thanks for your support,
The T32C team.

Because of some evident errors of fact being expressed by some of the discussion group members, the RSGB President has written twice to clubs in the UK drawing attention to the key points of the Board’s proposals at the upcoming EGM. The content of the two letters is reproduced below. Please would you take time to read this.

I am writing to all clubs (and copying others) after discussions with the Regional Teams.

The proposals being presented to the EGM are important for the Society. They will fundamentally impact the way we handle current difficulties. And yet some have sought to ridicule the proposals, based on an incomplete understanding of exactly what is being proposed and why. Hence this letter.

Contrary to the chatter on the wires, this is not about democracy—it’s about giving the Society the best chance to fix its problems. We have a crisis, and a crisis demands exceptional actions.

The current chatter is the result of selective disclosure (against the Board’s wishes) of some elements of the Board discussion on 10th September. The board recognised that careful communication was needed and agreed to prepare a full communication pack. In the interim, the matter was confidential. One Board member has inflicted serious damage on the Society by disregarding that decision. That is unacceptable, does not reflect well on the individual concerned and is inconsistent with his position as a Director.

In a recent podcast, a former Director said that he did not recognise that there was a crisis. That in itself speaks volumes. The impending problems had been flagged to the Board over the last year or so, and now are with us. To be specific:

There have been some significant errors in governance over the last five years. This has led the Society into dangerous waters financially.
Cash is running low, and next year places a huge additional cash demand on the Society from needed capital investment and the running costs of BP. Whilst not insolvent, we cannot sustain further drains on our cash.
Yet right now we do not have an acceptable budget for 2012. The current one shows, against our aspirations to run BP and GB4FUN and other factors in the 2012 budget, a loss of some £60k. We simply cannot afford this and have no option but to take very significant action to keep our budget balanced. This in itself will demand some hard choices.
Nor do we have a General Manager.
Furthermore we are regularly told that we do not have the right attitudes and behaviours towards our members and our volunteers.
Action is needed quickly by a sure-footed Board to pull things round, both financially and in terms of the way the Society works.

It is understandable that those who do not recognise the crisis might say “we don’t see the need for change”. As soon as you recognise the seriousness of the position, it suddenly becomes clearer.

That is why the Board is proposing an Interim Board (IB) for some 15 months made up of highly professional and experienced amateur radio people, professionally engaged in running companies. Their focus will be to restore health to the finances whilst at the same time maintaining or enhancing membership services, instilling the ethos into RSGB described in RadCom for November, and developing all aspects of the Advisory Group proposals to present to members for consultation and member input. Some of these proposals have not yet been considered in detail by the Board, some have been rejected and some—most notably the “Web” and “Ethos” recommendations, have been generally accepted as suitable for member consultation. In everything it does, the IB will be accountable to the membership. And, just like any other Board, it cannot make changes to the Society’s Constitution without the approval of the membership. So the claims that the Interim Board is “not accountable” are simply scare-mongering and disinformation.

It seems that there is also a concern amongst some members that the Interim Board, once in place, will seek to consolidate its position. Let me state quite categorically that this is not possible. The terms of Resolution 1 (specifically the clause immediately after (b)(iv)) clearly state that the M&As will revert to the current ones no later than the 2013 AGM. This means that the IB cannot continue to exist beyond that date. The only way that this can change is if the IB calls another General Meeting of members to propose further changes to the Memorandum and Articles of the Society.

Members can therefore be assured that the IB has a limited lifespan, in which to discharge its role, and that after that the current Board arrangements will return, unless the members agree otherwise in a further EGM.

The IB members will be expected to devote a significant amount of time to turning the Society around. It will be a working Board and will be in a position to support the Acting GM (who cannot continue to carry his current load) in the absence of a full time GM replacement. During this time the National and Regional Councils will continue, with enhanced frequency for the NC, ensuring close consultation with representatives of the membership at large.

If, however, the EGM proposals are rejected the Society will continue as at present, with an uncertain outcome.

The Board believes that the proposals being put to the EGM represent the best chance of addressing the Society’s difficulties with confidence and certainty.

Rather than focus on the democracy issue (the EGM proposals are democratic—just different) members might want to consider whether the RSGB described in the AG report summary and the “future” article on page 15 is the sort of RSGB they want to see. That’s where we need feedback—quickly.

The Board deserves your support in being frank and open about the issues and no matter how different the proposals are for resolving the current issues, please support them. The alternative is far less certain of securing the right outcome.

Series 4, Episode 22 of the ICQ Podcast has been released. The latest news, your feedback, and Martin (M1MRB) and Colin (M6BOY) discuss the issues facing the RSGB EGM annoucement. Ex RSGB Technical Director Leslie Butterfields (G0CIB) joins them to help to understand the proposals.

Starts about 38 minutes in to the podcast.

Click here to hear it.    

All photos from G7VJR – View his blog by visiting http://g7vjr.org/

This update was sent by Don, G3XTT earlier today.

With two weeks still to go, T32C now has over 100k QSOs in the log, including 22k with Europe (and 23k with Asia), our target area.
As the JA and US pile-ups continue to diminish, we hope the percentage of EU will increase. However, the decline in solar activity since we first started has not helped. That said, we are on track to set at least a few new records.

We have been increasingly active on RTTY, with 6.5k QSOs now on that mode and increasing rapidly. The demand for RTTY, as all DXpeditions have discovered in recent years, seems to be never ending.

We continue to cover as many band/mode openings as we can, with the equipment we carried here – we are well aware that the situation would have been better had our container of equipment arrived, as we would have had the opportunity to install a greater variety of antennas, and would have had linears at all operating positions. Nevertheless, we feel justified in pressing ahead with the expedition – 100k QSOs in 9 days, Field Day style, can’t be bad! That said, it has been a constant battle to keep everything working – an antenna party a week into our operation found lots of saltwater corrosion in connections and coax and guys that were badly abraded, just as one example.

We are currently able to operate two stations simultaneously on 10, 15 and 20 and are looking at being able to do the same on 12 and 17 to make the most of the main band openings, but with limited coaxial cable (it’s heavy to hand carry!) we are having trouble achieving the antenna separation we ideally need.

There is a team changeover tomorrow (Wednesday our time), when 11 operators leave and another 11 arrive, with 16 remaining for the whole period. The incoming team are bringing a couple more FT-450D radios and one more amplifier, as well as some other useful items. We stopped operations for a couple of hours yesterday evening our time for a party to wish the outgoing operators well.

It’s not all work, work, work here on Christmas. Apart from last night’s “Christmas Party” (which was, naturally, attended by Santa himself), a couple of groups have been deep-sea fishing when not on operating duty, with great success. The local people that we have met in our travels have been, without exception, friendly and helpful. It’s a fascinating location, with some equally fascinating history (some of which appears on our website)

Don G3XTT
T32C Publicity Officer

This update was sent by Don, G3XTT earlier today.

We have now been operating for four days and have passed the 50,000 QSO milestone. There is still almost 3 weeks to go, so those who are still needing us on various bands and modes have many opportunities still to come. This bulletin is by way of a summary of what has been done and what is planned.

Bear in mind that this has turned out to be something of an unplanned Field Day style operation, and we now have no expectations of our container of equipment arriving while we are here on Christmas Island.

Instead, the team hand carried just over one metric tonne of equipment (poles, cables, radio gear, computers, etc) to the island. We are extremely grateful to all those who loaned equipment at short notice to help enable the expedition to take place and be successful. Inevitably we have had teething problems, as we have a variety of amplifiers, Microham routers, etc. where we would, ideally, like to have standard equipment and interfaces. Fortunately the transceivers are consistent as Yaesu came to our rescue with the loan of ten FT-450D radios at very short notice.

Antenna-wise, we have two-element vertical dipole arrays by the sea for 20 through 10, quarter-wave verticals with elevated radials for 30 and 40, a quarter wave vertical with ground radials for 80 and a 15m high T antenna with ground radials for 160. We also have two Beverage receive antennas for 160 and now have additional vertical dipoles for 10, 15 and 20 to allow us to retask the low band stations as second stations on those bands when LF is closed. We are continually refining our antenna systems within the limits of the wire, poles and coax that we have here, though the second tranche of operators who arrive in a week’s time will bring more.

We started our SSB operations at the weekend with an entry in the Oceania SSB contest in which we believe we have comprehensively beaten the previous contest records. We will not, however, be entering the CW leg as this would undoubtedly lead to a lot of unnecessary duplicate contacts as we will by then have been very active on CW on all bands.

There has been high demand for Christmas Island, especially on LF and also on 10 and 12 where, for many years, there has been little or no propagation. So far the sunspots have been helping those bands along, with 10m being our QSO leader to date. We have pretty much been working all comers to clear the decks so that we can begin to focus more on Europe where band openings are much more limited than to the US and Japan. We would appreciate cooperation from those two areas – US and Japanese stations should find plenty of opportunity to work us on all bands. We did have to delay starting our RTTY operations – our original plans would have allowed us to be on RTTY right from the start. The good news is that RTTY is now well under way on several bands. If 10m continues to play well, we may even show up on FM!

On 160, we made our first European contacts last night, Italy and Germany and at our sunset and Russia, Ukraine and Finland at our sunrise. Hopefully these openings will improve over the next week or two. 80m shows a similar pattern but with longer openings, but right now only our topband station has access to the Beverages.

We will continue to make regular updates on our website and Michael G7VJR will no doubt update Twitter while he is here (he leaves with the first group next week). The online log on ClubLog is getting a very high hit rate, as expected – we are uploading logs twice a day, at 7am and 7pm local time here. The Internet connectivity from the hotel is turning out to be better than we had anticipated (since our site visit a year ago the hotel has installed a satellite Internet), and not only does this make log uploading easier but has meant that we have been able to follow everyone’s feedback better than expected – we are grateful for that and it feeds into our daily team meetings. There is a feedback facility on the t32c.com website, which is the best way to reach us.

Finally, for that small but enthusiastic group of 6m EMEers, we are still hoping to give this mode a go in the second two weeks of the expedition, but cannot at this time make any guarantees.

Don G3XTT
T32C Publicity Officer