Author - Charles M0OXO

The WORLD WIDE IRON HAM CONTEST is a unique world-wide contest intended to promote the multi-mode skill of the ham contest community in one single 24-hour period competition.

The GADX Araucaria Dx Group together with the majority of the Brazilian Contest and DX Clubs, based upon the success of the IRON MAN and some other multi-sports competitions, are sponsoring a different contest alternative where the competitors must use several alternatives to test their skills in different ham radio modes on all bands around the clock for 24 hours.

Click the logo top left to see the rules about this years event.

Are you aware of the DX Code of Conduct?

This DXpeditioners’ Code is to help maximize the fun for all participants. As the DX operator, you play a critical role in pileups: you are “in charge”. Dealing with an unruly pileup of discourteous operators who have forgotten about ethical behavior is NOT fun. So it makes sense to plan and train ahead of time on how best to deal with the situation

Good operators at the DX end and courteous behavior at the other end of the QSO can greatly increase the total number of QSOs logged. It has been demonstrated that pileups can be kept reasonably under control if the DX operator follows certain ‘rules’. Luckily, some top operators have given us the benefit of their experience. Please peruse these suggestions on this link and bear it in mind when calling the many Dxpeditions that are currently active.

http://www.dx-code.org/

Its November again and having a couple of days down at the Club in GW Land.

Listen out for MC0SHL on the air but in all likelyhood I don’t expect to be on air much at all as I have other things planned but you never know!

Also have a browse around the Club website when you have a few minutes.

You can find the website by clicking on the log top left of this message or from the left sidebar of the webpage.

Qsl Cards have now arrived from Gennady UX5UO for the V31MA callsign.

Qsl Cards have been processed and Direct requests are in the mail later today. Bureau cards also processed and will go with next shipment (see http://www.m0oxo.com/bureau-posting-news.html and details will appear here when next shipping takes place).

Your Qsl Cards are not required so where possible, please do not send through the bureau and use OQRS.

The fastest way to receive any Qsl Card I manage is to request them via M0OXO OQRS.

Qsl Cards for  Raydel CM2ESP are now at the Print shop.

The CM2ESP Qsl Cards are currently being printed and I expect arrival within 2 to 3 weeks latest. Listen out for Raydel ( a keen Cave explorer) who runs old East German military surplus equipment which covers 160m, 80m, 75m, 40m and 30m, with a top PEP of 20 watts.

Your Qsl Cards are not required (unless you wish to send them). The fastest way to receive any Qsl Card I manage is to request them via M0OXO OQRS.

A  new batch of Qsl Cards for the VK9NI (OC-005) 2009 operation arrived yesterday.

Cards waiting have already been processed and will be mailed this weekend. Anyone still requiring cards for this DXpedition should now apply via M0OXO.

Your Qsl Cards are not required (unless you wish to send them). The fastest way to receive any Qsl Card I manage is to request them via M0OXO OQRS.

Listen out for Rich (M5RIC) this week as he operates as SW5CC.

Rich will be qrv between 23rd and 31st October as SW5CC from Rhodes Island, Greece IOTA EU-001. He will also participate in CQWW SSB.

Your Qsl Cards are not required (unless you wish to send them). The fastest way to receive any Qsl Card I manage is to request them via M0OXO OQRS.

Well the band conditions have been so good that we have decided to stay at the Clubhouse
in GW for a few more days, intending to travel home maybe Monday.

Conditions on 12 and 10m here having been unreal. Tim M0URX and I have logged well over 1000 q’s
in the sporadic operating over the last few days and probably 900 of those have been into NA.

We almost worked all States on each band but missed out on HI and the two Alaskan stations we worked turned out to be in a different area than the Callsign showed ;-( When 12m actually did close around 2030utc we took time out for a few beers with Stuie VK8NSB joining in the fun on SKYPE.

Ah well, there is always today….and tomorrow…..

Logs are already uploaded to LOTW (thanks Chris G1VDP) so the many people that thanked us for the new slot on 12 & 10 should already have it confirmed.

****had another good run on 40m this afternoon/evening and log for this latest visit now ended with 1740 qso’s logged. Thanks to all that worked us this weekend…. I will be back as MC0SHL in a few weeks!

Typhoon Francisco continues to become better organized in Northwestern Pacific waters as it spins southwest of Guam.

The system barely missed the island of Guam twice on its southwestern track before it changed direction to the northeast. Francisco has developed in a similar area to where former Typhoon Wipha formed last week. Francisco is now located southwest of the island and is moving northwest with maximum sustained winds of 96 mph.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecast has the storm moving north-northwest towards Japan over the next week.

New studies released at the American Astronomical Society’s 45th Annual Division for Planetary Sciences meeting in Denver, Colorado suggests that Comet ISON could make it through its close perihelion passage near the Sun.

The first criterion for ISON to survive perihelion is its nucleus size. Comet nuclei smaller than 200 meters in diameter, with an average density or lower typically do not survive a close passage to the Sun. Observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as smaller telescopes, suggest that ISON is between 1 and 4 kilometers across..

ISON may be just big and dense enough not to be vaporized and to survive its close encounter with the Sun. So it looks like ISON appears likely to survive the combination of mass loss due to sublimation and tidal disruption for most plausible scenarios.

ISON will pass inside the Roche limit of the Sun, which is a distance of 2.4 million kilometers with temperatures approaching 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit on closest approach. Comet ISON is expected to be the most active and put on its best showing post-perihelion – if it survives.