Has EURAO got itself into a mess?

Recently, EURAO started offering third party liability insurance for new members.  Invaluable and indeed essential for anyone operating away from their home, the offer of EURAO membership and free insurance for just 10 Euro must be the deal of the decade.

Except, EURAO has been very slow to produce any details of the insurance offered, and that some members will already be relying upon.

I asked EURAO about the contract wording some weeks ago now.  They said the text was in translation.

This morning, EURAO sent a general circular saying how much discussion there had been about the insurance during a recent online conference.  But it still didn't produce any detail on the terms of the insurance.  It did, though, provide a link to the offer page.

I've asked again about this on the EURAO Facebook page this morning.  In fairness to EURAO, they are quick to respond, and there does seem to have been a bit of a panic this morning to produce something. 

At the moment, I've a PDF document to a French language text.  Even though it's posted on FB, there's a curious statement that it's for my "eyes only".  Well, it's all public now! In fact, reading the comments on FB from EURAO again, it seems they wrongly believed they were conducting an internal discussion!

Sadly, my French isn't good enough for conversation, let alone legal texts, so I will have to slowly wade through it with online translation.

One thing that seems to be odd, mindful that it is a translation, is the limit in the insurance contract to 35 members, which presumably means the insurance was some form of special offer by the insurance company (or its broker) to EURAO.  That may explain the nebulous references to an 'experimental' offer that I've seen mentioned by EURAO recently.

EURAO have made an error in offering this product, which people have of course accepted, without having, say, French and English texts immediately available.  At the moment, nobody knows what the terms are or, for my part, whether the insurance actually covers members in the UK, which is coming out of the EU very shortly, should that be relevant.

Well, I suppose I haven't lost anything, given the insurance was 'free'.  But I can't, yet at least, rely on an insurance that nobody knows the conditions for.

CQ from the Titanic's grid (or as close as makes no difference)!

RMS Titanic at Cobh Harbour, Ireland where the final 123 passengers alighted.

If there are two things I like about amateur radio, it's (1) the unexpected and (2) making QSOs with maritime mobile stations.

This afternoon, over on 12m, I saw YU2AX/MM suddenly appear on the 12m FT8 waterfall.  It's a while since I logged a /MM QSO, so I turned the antenna towards mid-Atlantic, where I guessed he may be, and indeed found him coming back straight away.

Luckily, YU2AX was very much ready for my request: 'PSE GRID 73' at the end of the QSO.  He immediately sent 'YU2AX/MM GN41'.

Looking GN41 up, I could see it was very close to the location of the wreck of the Titanic.  On further examination, it seems the Titanic is desperately close to, but just outside GN41.  Titanic actually lies in GN51ar, about 4km east of the GN41 boundary.  Not that it matters, because Maidenhead is just a grid, and YU2AX was definitely in the Titanic's general area.

Nearly, but not quite in GN41.  But who cares, really?

Someone was kind enough, following a QSO, to send me a beautiful, large stamp of the Titanic on the centenary of the sinking.  I've kept it safely ever since.

Lightning stops play

A very warm spell, up to 30 degrees Celsius in North Wales yesterday, gave way in the evening to quite lively thunderstorm activity.  This is rare in this part of the world, as the sea moderates the strong convection seen inland.

So, that put an end to radio fun here!  Sadly, the main storms were out into the Irish Sea before darkness, so I didn't capture any good lightning photos.  Ah well!

The thunderstorms begin. 

RSGB: the final farewell.

By any stretch of the imagination, the experience I and my daughter have had with the RSGB has never been a good one.

I haven't been a member for many years.  Within weeks of joining in 2011, I found myself referring the RSGB to the Information Commissioner's Office for a malicious data breach that can only be described as utterly incomprehensible - and, as the ICO determined - unlawful.

I actually had to ask the society for an apology, which they did issue, but only under the protection of a letter issued 'without prejudice' - showing their lawyers feared being sued for data protection breaches and/or libel.

Apart from all that, I have never felt the RSGB does anything like the kind of lobbying and campaigning work that is undeniably necessary to improve the lot of the amateur radio enthusiast.

Last month, the RSGB launched, with much fanfare, a 'campaign' to tackle VDSL interference, which is quite widespread - and the cause of much angst and terrible disappointment in those who have, in some cases, operated without problem for very many years.

But, quite unlike the kind of society-led campaign you would hope to find, what the RSGB were actually expecting was that each individual would complain to OFCOM themselves!

Roll on a month, and the latest RadCom (already in the bin), announces that a whopping 60 people have made a complaint as requested.

That's 60 people out of an RSGB membership of some 20,000, and a UK amateur population of about 75,000.  In other words, less than 0.1% of the total population have reacted.

Now, OFCOM are already widely seen as little more than a seller of microwave spectrum to the mobile phone guys.  With few resources, and no income at all from amateur licences, OFCOM is obviously not going to be rushing to the community's aid any time soon. 

And then, the wonderful news from the RSGB that, having listened to them and made a complaint about VDSL, those people should now "expect to identify" which stations - precisely - they can't receive as a direct and sole result of VDSL.  That is not going to be a trivial exercise and, I would suggest, one that no ordinary member of the radio community will ever be able to demonstrate to a legal standard.

So, everyone's been hyped-up, hardly anyone has bothered listening, but those who have now have an impossible standard of proof to demonstrate.  Wonderful!  You'll excuse OFCOM for laughing in our faces and continuing to do nothing to help amateurs.

Well, all this, plus some rather dismissive comments only this week from the society about my daughter's achievement in gaining a licence at age 11, means that we no longer wish to be associated with the Home Counties-centric, committee urchin infested RSGB.  Nor do we wish to benefit from the free young persons' membership, which we have today cancelled.

Now we're an EURAO family.  Not ideal for national issues, but then, what is the RSGB actually changing for the better in terms of planning rights, RFI mitigation, etc?  Not even with 20,000 members are they able to offer the extremely valuable free public liability insurance currently offered by EURAO, and which is bound to attract new members.

So, thanks for nothing, RSGB.  You won't be missed - at all.

Alaska - on 28MHz!

Quite amazed to see my 28MHz FT8 signal achieve a peak -03dB SNR/2500Hz with KL7TC at 11:16UT this morning.

T|he great circle path is a lot shorter than looking at a flat map leads one to believe - just over 4000 miles.

Even so, it's an intriguing path at the peak of midsummer, and the strength of my ~25W signal, coming from a vertical delta loop operated at its first harmonic and so with quite a high pattern, must point to Es.

And, yes, I did check with Bill that he wasn't listening remotely (he wasn't).

This therefore seems to be a westward polar path that is, to the east, leading to lots of Europe-Japan QSOs all the way up to 6m at the moment.

NLC coverage a couple of days ago.

When you look at how NLC - intimately related to, and essentially the visual manifestation of PMSE - is now covering the polar regions down to mid latitudes, this kind of DX is perhaps not really surprising - though many will argue it is some big mystery, devoid of explanation.

Happy summer solstice!

I hope the solstice brings you peace, Es and lots of QSOs!  Certainly plenty going on on the higher HF bands.

Sadly, our midsummer day, and the next day, is a massive disappointment in that it's currently around 90km/h winds - more like mid-autumn, and no clear overnight skies for more than three weeks!

Midsummer sunrise, Stonehenge.  Image: Wikimedia.

Thank you, QRZ.com!

For those who have just a little social intelligence, it's a well-known fact that, if you decide to ban something, the consequence is, inevitably, far more interest in what has been banned than had you simply left it alone.  The BBC know this, from their long history of banning certain popular songs.

From that, we can only conclude that QRZ.com doesn't have much social intelligence.  It decided to ban GB9BLM - my Black Lives Matter special event callsign last week, based on a spurious and false assertion that GB9 calls do not exist, and so I had provided "false information" to QRZ.com.  I particularly liked that latter claim, sounding, as it does, like 'undermining the State'.

Following the ban and events that occurred as a result, as a sole operator with other things to do in the day, I managed over 1000 QSOs in two weeks.

There was fantastic support from all over Europe, Russia and, I was especially glad to see, America.


In no time at all, before I myself had realised the call had been removed, others had already noticed the removal, and were questioning why.  Some of those asking were US-based lawyers.

This sparked a lot of discussion on Reddit, none of which was the usual poison seen on forums - including those of QRZ.com itself.

In fact, many of the comments were quite heartbreaking, with licensed black operators saying how excluded they felt in the hobby of amateur radio. There were some comments of a similar nature from gay people, which I can only imagine must be particularly hated amongst the ageing, gun-toting white conservatives that troll QRZ.com forums, amongst others.

Indeed, I myself found the whole experience of this banning very troubling indeed.  By Fred's own words, QRZ.com holds about "800,000 callsigns" from across the world.  I think that does mean QRZ.com ought to be far more alive to cultures that aren't white American.

QRZ.com, let's remember, gave rise to serious questions about why they really banned the site, given that part of Fred Lloyd's email to me said:

"Your team wishes to paint every non-black person on earth as racist, and in doing so you have significantly diluted your argument."

The absurdity of this needs no further comment, other than to say the obvious assumption that I was black, and a member of the BLM "team" were both completely wrong.

Fred continued to try and apportion blame for the banning to my actions, all of which happened after Fred had banned the callsign.

After approaches from supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement, I agree with them that not deleting my reinstated pages on QRZ.com, as I had intended, is the best way forward.  That way, I can keep spreading the good word about various social issues.  But in general, my web presence is now better served by Hamcall.