With all the noise subsiding on the bands that FT4TA was generating things seem a little quiet today. According to the web site of the expedition they have folded up their tent and are heading for home. We wish them a safe journey. This operation was indeed a good one in my book, very good cw ops, plus the phone ops kept the pile up under control. They gave us multi bands and lots of operating hours, so indeed like an expedition should be run.
Oh yes, we all have comments, or complaints, most of them were trivial, but like a great American President once said “You can please some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time!” such is the world of DX.
I achieved my objective of needing a contact with Tromelin on 15 and 10 meters; we succeeded and for good measure worked them on 20 cw. As I mentioned I would have loved to make a qso on 40, but the gremlins of the 7mhz band kept a lot of us from even trying. We were blessed with continuous carriers, dits, long dahs, music, stations tuning on the dx channel, plus the self appointed band cops. Wonderful example of how not to act as a radio amateur, or conduct on the air.
Perhaps, next time I will concentrate my effort on 40, if there is a next time any time soon. I did hear one station complaining about the expedition taking up so much space with the pile up. Get a grip, it only lasted a few days, find another frequency for your local rag chew after that return to your little piece of 40 meters. Of course this station had to send his gripe right on top of FT4TA for endless minutes, I saw no point in this type of operating.
Looks like some are in the works, VU4CB is on now and then on and off, mostly off no comparison to FT4TA operation. In fact I have not seen the VU4K qsl surface as of this date and that operation what little there was of it was worked back in March. I have also noticed no qsls have surfaced with the 5U operations several months ago as well, not holding my breath on this one.
Qsling is a 50/50 game and sometimes you just lose shame you do, but it seems that one active station in HC2 land never replies and another in a Caribbean Island claims the mail gets lost and that is his story. I can send you the calls if you have not figured it out, but my advice is to save your money and work someone else.
Use qsl managers if possible and there are plenty of them; a Canadian qsl manager managed the only real complaint I had were one station I worked in China on 40. It took three years to obtain a card, little slow in the process and never did understand why since they had the logbooks in Canada.
Oh well, I got the card, but at my age 74 I am not prepared to wait for decades for a card, reply to requests and get them in the mail. Oh, I do find he OQRS system works, but about the only thing it saves is postage. By the time you figure on the international costs of transfers, you are about even. I have used it on occasions in fact just got a card from ZD9XG via this system and applied for a card from C21GC, we will see if it works as well. Ok, good DX, if you have any questions, or want to know a qsl route If I have the answer will be glad to share.
