Hi,

Have there been any subsequent problems?

The server was never down. I believe it was a DNS issue, the domain was perhaps not always resolved properly. It could have happened especially to people visiting from a link farther from European backbones.  I replaced the secondary name server of the domain, and I hope it has made name resolution more reliable.

Sorry for any inconvenience it might have caused. And thanks for letting me know of this issue.

73, Chris,  WW1WWW   webmaster of  pt0s.com

Dear All commenting in this topic,

I am Chris, webmaster/pilot of PT0S. 

I would like to thank you for your comments in this forum.

Positive comments surely gave the operators encouragement in a truly difficult environment.

Negative comments were/are also important as they help operators understand what the other end of the pileups experience, and - if possible - try to adjust their operaration to please the audience.  Therefore, throughout the expedition I have also forwarded most negative comments and various request to them as well. As far as I hear myself, and as far as they told me, the team took these comments seriously.

Therefore I would like to thank ALL of you who have given us feedback, either positive or negative, directly or indirectly. Your comments were/are much appreciated.

73, Chris,  WW1WWW  -  HA5X  -  HA5XA  - M0XXA

Dear All commenting in this topic,

I am Chris, webmaster/pilot of PT0S. 

I would like to thank you for your comments in this forum.
Unfortunately, due to the limited internet access on the rocks, the team will not be able to read this forum while they are there; your positive comments would surely give them encouragement. Therefore I am going to send some of your kind words to the team as part of my next email summary.

As for negative comments - although a few of these were not worded in a style one would like in a club of gentlemen - are also important as they help operators understand what the other end of the pileups experience, and - if possible - try to adjust their operaration to please the audience.  Therefore, throughout the expedition I have also forwarded most negative comments and various request to them as well. As far as I hear myself, and as far as they told me, the team took these comments seriously.

Therefore I would like to thank ALL of you who have given us feedback, either positive or negative, directly or indirectly. Your comments were much appreciated.

73, Chris,  WW1WWW  -  HA5X  -  HA5XA  - M0XXA

Hi Chris,

Yes, there is a pilot you can write to. You have just done that

Please re-check if your 15m contacts are now in log.

You have to understand that the internet access on the rocks is very limited and unreliable. The high speed internet they planned to use is currently unavailable, and they have to resort to an Iridium satellite phone, which gives them a full 2.4 kbit (yes, kilo!). Also, this 2.4 kbps is very unreliable. We get small bits of the logs in the ADIF format, then we consolidate them here in Europe before uploading to the logsearch and LoTW.  On their shoestring internet the transfer often stalls in the middle of a 100 kilobyte file, therefore it is sent again... so some of the bits are here several times, while some bits hardly ever get through. Today we finally got nearly 10k QSOs, so we decided not to hinder things any longer and upload what we had, even if it was not complete. A few hours later a relatively small portion that was still missing finally came through and we added that immediately.

As for LoTW, all the QSOs that we have in the logsearch have also been uploaded to LoTW. We have been informed by ARRL earlier today that currently there is a three day backlog on their system, meaning your LoTW credits might not appear immediately.

We are sorry for all the above inconvenience, most of these difficulties are beyond our control. I suggest you follow updates on the PT0S.com website and/or the PT0S news mailing list where we try to keep you informed.  

We truly appreciate all feedback, information or questions, which we try to reply as quickly as possible.

73 / GL  and have (more) fun chasing PT0S.

Chris, WW1WWW (webmaster/pilot of PT0S)    also HA5X / HA5XA / M0XXA

Hi,

The sad news is that you actually had that QSO with me. :-)


73 de Chris, HG5XA    (also HA5X, M0XXA, WW1WWW, 9A8XA, SO9XC)

Hi,

We uploaded the log to LoTW today. It is the same log database as the online log, therefore it does not contain RTTY QSOs yet. If your QSO is shown in the online log, but does not show up as a LOTW credit, there can be a problem with the date/time/band/mode you have entered in your log. Please examine your log, and upload the QSO again. We believe LOTW allows for a maximum time difference of 30 minutes. In our experience, most no-match problems are result of time differences (eg not keeping your log in UTC time or logging the QSO into the computer much after the QSO and entering data incorrectly or in incorrect format...)

73, Chris HA5X / HG5XA

http://tx3a.com webmaster

Hello All,

I have an FT-817 and a manual antenna tuner (MFJ-902H). My problem is that there is no visible reflected power on the FT817's SWR meter however bad the antenna is... Even if I unplug the antenna, the indicated SWR is still nil...  This makes it impossible to tune the antenna with the inbuilt SWR meter.  Any idea why there is no SWR  shown on the meter and what the solution might be? Or am I doing something wrong?   On older SWR meters and older radios (eg. FT757GX)  there used to be a SWR-meter calibration knob, is there any feature similar to that in the FT817?

Thanks for the idea. Unfortunately the problem was of other, somewhat more serious nature.  We opened up the 1 week old transceiver, took the upper board out and examined it under a magnifying glass. A resisitor near the key connector looked as if broken. We were not sure, however we gave a go-ahead, and put another resistor in place. We dared not take the original one out as it is so tiny (SMD)...  Well, thanks a friend with stable hands, the thing does work now.



 

To be more precise: the in-built keyer works when I use the "MICKEY" option: I can use the microphone's Down/Up buttons to generate Morse code. However, nothing happens through the backside CW key connector.

Hello All,

I just bought an FT-897. It does work very well on SSB. However, its CW does not seem to do anything. I plug in the key, but I cannot hear the tone, neither does the internal keyer do anything.  What can be wrong? Is it hardware problem or perhaps just a menu item misconfigured? Any idea?

73 de Chris, HA5X

Dear All,

Does anyone happen to have an English language user manual for the Yaesu FT-897?  Unfortunately mine is in German, which I am not very good at reading.


Best 73: Chris, HA5X