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Author Topic: VU4 coming soon  (Read 637 times)

W4AMP

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Re: VU4 coming soon
« Reply #15 on: February 15, 2023, 08:35:35 AM »

Reading the info on the VU4T QRZ page, they have set expectations: Holiday style, 40-10 m, no FT8/FT4, no QSL cards (only LOTW).
I'm only needing VU4 on 160 m, so no chance of that. But I'll look forward to hearing them, and maybe one or two QSO.

LOTW only? The stupidity continues.
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W2IRT

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Re: VU4 coming soon
« Reply #16 on: February 15, 2023, 08:58:58 AM »

LOTW only? The stupidity continues.
Good for them! A relic of a bygone era that the world's landfills can frankly do without. I'd wager a huge percentage of paper cards are never even looked at, or else used for an award application once then tucked away into a shoe box to be forgotten about until the ham's widow tosses them all out after he passes on. Granted the option of asking/paying for a card is nice for an ATNO, but why burden the DX stations to pay to have cards printed and shipped, and then take weeks to answer potentially a couple of thousand requests. As they said, it's a holiday style operation not a DXpedition.
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Night gathers and now my watch begins. It shall not end until I reach Top of the Honor Roll

Great times are at hand, and soon there will be DX for all—although more for some than for others.

WO7R

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Re: VU4 coming soon
« Reply #17 on: February 15, 2023, 09:16:06 AM »

Quote
Reading the info on the VU4T QRZ page, they have set expectations: Holiday style, 40-10 m, no FT8/FT4, no QSL cards (only LOTW).

That sounds like a toughie from NA.  This is zone 26, not zone 22, actually, but pretty close, still, to NA antipodes.  Greyline is going to be your friend in NA.

"Holiday style" probably means that JAs are in heaven and the rest of us will lose our prime propagation to VU4 while they are out touring or just sleeping.

Still, there was a VU4 last year that a lot of folks worked, including state-side.
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WO7R

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Re: VU4 coming soon
« Reply #18 on: February 15, 2023, 09:19:05 AM »

Quote
LOTW only? The stupidity continues.

It sounds heavenly to me.

Have you priced cards lately?  It's creeping up to 5 or 6 bucks in all too many places.

Me, I have a radio hobby.  If you want to add a postal hobby to it, more power to you.  Hope you're happy.

Leave me out of it, though.  I'd rather spend my money on other things.  I'd even rather pay a small fee even for LOTW.  I got some cards that I should gather up and turn in.  All of fourteen.  I keep putting it off.

LOTW is just so much easier and, on balance, so much cheaper.  A couple of mouse clicks, and you're done.

It's also so much more certain.  I got a couple of direct QSLs to perform with a Russian manager.  Not sure I want to send them via the postal service right about now.  I haven't, at any rate.
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K0RS

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Re: VU4 coming soon
« Reply #19 on: February 15, 2023, 09:25:29 AM »

Who wants paper cards anymore?  Inconvenient, unreliable, slow, expensive.  And the big onus, having them checked.  Sheesh, c'mon.  Maudlin souvenirs for the sentimental and nostalgic.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2023, 09:28:26 AM by K0RS »
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W4AMP

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Re: VU4 coming soon
« Reply #20 on: February 15, 2023, 09:26:04 AM »

LOTW only? The stupidity continues.
Good for them! A relic of a bygone era that the world's landfills can frankly do without. I'd wager a huge percentage of paper cards are never even looked at, or else used for an award application once then tucked away into a shoe box to be forgotten about until the ham's widow tosses them all out after he passes on. Granted the option of asking/paying for a card is nice for an ATNO, but why burden the DX stations to pay to have cards printed and shipped, and then take weeks to answer potentially a couple of thousand requests. As they said, it's a holiday style operation not a DXpedition.

You are older than I am. And I am pretty old.
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K0RS

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Re: VU4 coming soon
« Reply #21 on: February 15, 2023, 09:29:48 AM »

And I am pretty old.

Me too, but for me it's not a trap.
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"90% of the people in a pile-up have no idea what's going on.  It's up to you to be in the remaining 10%."  *W9KNI*

W4AMP

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Re: VU4 coming soon
« Reply #22 on: February 15, 2023, 09:35:02 AM »

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K0UA

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Re: VU4 coming soon
« Reply #23 on: February 15, 2023, 09:54:12 AM »

Reading the info on the VU4T QRZ page, they have set expectations: Holiday style, 40-10 m, no FT8/FT4, no QSL cards (only LOTW).
I'm only needing VU4 on 160 m, so no chance of that. But I'll look forward to hearing them, and maybe one or two QSO.

LOTW only? The stupidity continues.

Are you kidding?  I am so glad to see the LOTW only. I wish all were this way.
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73  James K0UA

W2IRT

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Re: VU4 coming soon
« Reply #24 on: February 15, 2023, 10:01:51 AM »

Reading the info on the VU4T QRZ page, they have set expectations: Holiday style, 40-10 m, no FT8/FT4, no QSL cards (only LOTW).
I'm only needing VU4 on 160 m, so no chance of that. But I'll look forward to hearing them, and maybe one or two QSO.
LOTW only? The stupidity continues.
Are you kidding?  I am so glad to see the LOTW only. I wish all were this way.
Speaking as a bureau sorter I'm so over paper cards. I do it because it's part of being a club member. I still accept bureau cards and reply to them (and only because I don't have to pay to get them), but honestly I don't want them and will never give them a second glance beyond entering the data into my log. I probably won't even look at the front of the card to be honest. Every contact I make outside of contests goes up on LoTW and Clublog immediately, and contest Qs go up on the Sunday night after the contest. On the plus side, I heat with a wood stove and free fuel is free fuel.
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Night gathers and now my watch begins. It shall not end until I reach Top of the Honor Roll

Great times are at hand, and soon there will be DX for all—although more for some than for others.

K1VSK

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Re: VU4 coming soon
« Reply #25 on: February 15, 2023, 10:09:03 AM »

So the argument du jour is now qsl cards vs. LOTW. Anyone want to guess tomorrow’s subject for useless debate?

FWIW, it’s hard to display LOTW confirmations on the shack wall.
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KJ4Z

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Re: VU4 coming soon
« Reply #26 on: February 15, 2023, 10:18:05 AM »

Maudlin souvenirs for the sentimental and nostalgic.

Me, I have a radio hobby.  If you want to add a postal hobby to it, more power to you.  Hope you're happy.

Just as the on-air character of operations has changed over the years, so too has the postal side of it.  I still have many of the cards and envelopes from when I was a teenager in the 90s, and a lot of them really are interesting to this non-philatelist.  The stamps in particular, but many of the cards were hand made and of interesting design.  Some had handwritten notes too.  Well, not anymore.  Same generic full-colored cards and metered envelopes.  Reduced to mere instruments of confirmation, there's not much of interest left there anymore.  I finally gave up on paper cards in 2021 I think.
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W2IRT

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Re: VU4 coming soon
« Reply #27 on: February 15, 2023, 10:26:19 AM »

FWIW, it’s hard to display LOTW confirmations on the shack wall.
That's the only down side of it, and as I said, I still want one—and only one—from each entity. In my case, for my album, which I leave out at gatherings of non-hams to try and explain what it is that I do. There's no room on my shack walls; too many framed certificates and plaques, which quite frankly look better. But I used to do that a very long time ago, when I had hair and I looked better, and was using a hollow-state radio in my VE3 days.
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Night gathers and now my watch begins. It shall not end until I reach Top of the Honor Roll

Great times are at hand, and soon there will be DX for all—although more for some than for others.

K1VSK

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Re: VU4 coming soon
« Reply #28 on: February 15, 2023, 11:01:53 AM »

FWIW, it’s hard to display LOTW confirmations on the shack wall.
That's the only down side of it, and as I said, I still want one—and only one—from each entity. In my case, for my album, which I leave out at gatherings of non-hams to try and explain what it is that I do. There's no room on my shack walls; too many framed certificates and plaques, which quite frankly look better. But I used to do that a very long time ago, when I had hair and I looked better, and was using a hollow-state radio in my VE3 days.

Even the League (W1AW) still sends (and receives) cards. At least as of last month.  Guess they don’t have lots of “framed certificates and plagues”.  8)
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EI2GLB

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Re: VU4 coming soon
« Reply #29 on: February 15, 2023, 11:28:17 AM »

I'm sure plenty here used to use Global QSL back in the day but I found this service,

https://qsl.ure.es/en/

It's provided by the Spanish version of ARRL, basically you create an account, design your card, upload your contacts you want to QSL and pay and then they do the rest,

I have used it a few times and it works great, I always sneak in a contact with my self to test it and about 6 months is norm, they send the cards to Buro's around the world,

Over here in EU the DL's are fanatic about QSLing every single QSO so i get hundreds a year for simple FT8 QSO's this is a easy way to reply with almost zero effort,

Lots of people are saying no Buro cards but I like to RX cards from the Buro as you never know what you will get, and you never know on the other side the guy might need your card for some random awarf that we don't know about so it's nice to be nice as they say,

Trevor
EI2GLB
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