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By John AE5X, December 28, 2012

The following cards arrived yesterday – some direct and some in an envelope from the bureau – all from Africa:

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10, 12, 17, 20, 40 and 80 meters

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30m

. Continue reading 'Africa in my mailbox'»

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By John AE5X, November 11, 2012

Thanks to Wes Spence AC5K for the following:

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Since I was active in amateur radio before even having a driver’s license, money was always tight for buying radio stuff.  One way I saved money was by making my own QSL cards.

Homebrew QSLs used to be quite common years ago.  Even though it started that way, I still make most all of my own QSLs over 40 years later.

In The Beginning:

My first serious effort to make my own cards in quantity, started with a project in High School art class.  I used a technique called Block Printing:  You carve the image you want to print IN REVERSE on a block of wood or linoleum. Continue reading 'Homebrew QSL Cards de Wes AC5K'»

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By John AE5X, August 12, 2012

Back in November 2010 I posted my experiences regarding several duplicate QSL cards I’d received from stations using GlobalQSL.

In that posting I only mentioned duplicates from one station but had in fact received several dupes from several stations. That posting is here. In the comments section, one of the two founders of GlobalQSL (4X6UU) responded and explained that the dupes were due to a bug that had since been fixed. Continue reading 'Reconsidering GlobalQSL.com'»

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By John AE5X, August 1, 2012

In September of 1979 I had a QSO with Yuri UA1LO on 20 meter CW.

At some point, I learned of that callsign as being associated with Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Briefly, I thought I’d worked a very famous man- the first person to travel into outer space.

To this day a Google search of “UA1LO” shows threads on various forums and websites that debate whether or not UA1LO was in fact Yuri the cosmonaut – there’s still a fair amount of speculation going on.

UA1LO is listed as Yuri Gagarin here and the October 1980 issue of 73 Magazine has an article on Gagarin as UA1LO here (200kb pdf). Many believe both of these assertions are incorrect. Continue reading 'UA1LO: Cosmo-nyet…and 41 years ago today'»

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By John AE5X, July 30, 2012

As a new ham I was most fascinated in the ability to have conversations with hams in the Soviet Union. To me, such an ability represented something impossible for the rest of the population.

My grandparents had an annual telephone conversation with the family back in Denmark or Germany but for an average American citizen to be able to fire up a radio and play chess with a guy in Smolenskaya…it was nothing less than magical, made so not only by distance but by politics as well.

In addition to ham radio, I was also into shortwave listening. The news from various sources, music from other cultures and those haunting tones from Deutsche Welle – they were all part of the magic that is radio.

In the early 1980′s Radio Moscow began a “Russian by Radio” course, Continue reading 'Russian by Radio'»

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By John AE5X, June 23, 2012

Little did I know that my contact with UH8HBR in 1980 would be my only one with Turkmenistan so far.

Rare and becoming even more so, Turkmenistan is considered the 3rd most-censored country in the world. In fact, with recent developments in Burma, it may now be in the #2 position. North Korea, of course, holds First Place. Continue reading 'Turkmenistan: Political regression = ham-band rarity'»