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While browsing the bands I regularly bump to stations signing his call/QRP. There should be mentioned that such practice is not only stupid but illegal in some countries. They can have a strict declaration that ham radio operators are allowed to contact properly licensed stations only and in doubt, they have to wait until the authenticity of a station is confirmed. Therefore your call/QRP is very bad practice because hams in some countries can be not allowed to QSO you!
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The First Class CW Operators’ Club (FOC - known also as Friends Over Continents) and one of its founders, Gus Taylor, G8PG, celebrate the organisation’s 70th anniversary this year. Bob Jones, G3YIQ, takes a look at how the club has developed since 1938 and what it means to be a member today. more...

Roger, G3SXW, says the VooDoo Contest Group will again be QRV in the CQWW CW Contest (MM) as 3X5A. The eight operators include G3SXW, G3XTT, G4BWP, GM3YTS, K5VT and KC7V.

Sept. 30, 2008: Astronomers who count sunspots have announced that 2008 is now the "blankest year" of the Space Age.

As of Sept. 27, 2008, the sun had been blank, i.e., had no visible sunspots, on 200 days of the year. To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go back to 1954, three years before the launch of Sputnik, when the sun was blank 241 times.

"Sunspot counts are at a 50-year low," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. "We're experiencing a deep minimum of the solar cycle."

The image, taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) on Sept. 27, 2008, shows a solar disk completely unmarked by sunspots. For comparison, a SOHO image taken seven years earlier on Sept. 27, 2001, is peppered with colossal sunspots, all crackling with solar flares: image. The difference is the phase of the 11-year solar cycle. 2001 was a year of solar maximum, with lots of sunspots, solar flares and geomagnetic storms. 2008 is at the cycle's opposite extreme, solar minimum, a quiet time on the sun.

And it is a very quiet time. If solar activity continues as low as it has been, 2008 could rack up a whopping 290 spotless days by the end of December, making it a century-level year in terms of spotlessness.

Hathaway cautions that this development may sound more exciting than it actually is: "While the solar minimum of 2008 is shaping up to be the deepest of the Space Age, it is still unremarkable compared to the long and deep solar minima of the late 19th and early 20th centuries." Those earlier minima routinely racked up 200 to 300 spotless days per year.

Above: A histogram showing the blankest years of the last half-century. The vertical axis is a count of spotless days in each year. The bar for 2008, which was updated on Sept. 27th, is still growing.

Some solar physicists are welcoming the lull.

"This gives us a chance to study the sun without the complications of sunspots," says Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Right now we have the best instrumentation in history looking at the sun. There is a whole fleet of spacecraft devoted to solar physics--SOHO, Hinode, ACE, STEREO and others. We're bound to learn new things during this long solar minimum."

As an example he offers helioseismology: "By monitoring the sun's vibrating surface, helioseismologists can probe the stellar interior in much the same way geologists use earthquakes to probe inside Earth. With sunspots out of the way, we gain a better view of the sun's subsurface winds and inner magnetic dynamo."

"There is also the matter of solar irradiance," adds Pesnell. "Researchers are now seeing the dimmest sun in their records. The change is small, just a fraction of a percent, but significant. Questions about effects on climate are natural if the sun continues to dim."

Pesnell is NASA's project scientist for the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), a new spacecraft equipped to study both solar irradiance and helioseismic waves. Construction of SDO is complete, he says, and it has passed pre-launch vibration and thermal testing. "We are ready to launch! Solar minimum is a great time to go."

Coinciding with the string of blank suns is a 50-year record low in solar wind pressure, a recent discovery of the Ulysses spacecraft. (See the Science@NASA story Solar Wind Loses Pressure.) The pressure drop began years before the current minimum, so it is unclear how the two phenomena are connected, if at all. This is another mystery for SDO and the others.

A bugfix release fixes the ADIF export/import problem. This version is now ADIF 2.2.1 compliant.
Download here.

Many have been wondering what the status with regard to the Republic of Kosovo is as of today, both in general and in amateur radio terms specifically. Substantial progress has been made, and a new approach to get Kosovo totally on its own feet is well on its way. The United Nations (UNMIK) has scaled down its administrative role while the European Union (EULEX) has initiated its supporting role to help integrate the "interim administration" functions into the local institutions.

The United Nations Frequency Management Office (FMO) is one of those local institutions. This Office was responsible for authorizing Amateur Radio operations before and after the Kosovar declaration of independence, but as of today the FMO does not exist nor are licenses issued. You may still hear some stations operating as YU8 since those licenses issued in the past have not been specifically terminated.

Undoubtedly, Kosovo as a "country" has all required country requirements; (A) a defined territory, (B) a permanent population and (C) a government and (D) is capable of interacting with other countries with whom it has established diplomatic relations. As of today, the Republic of Kosovo is recognized by 46 countries representing many leading states and all geographical continents.

From an Amateur Radio and DXCC perspective, a great deal of confusing discussion has taken place; one side argues that the DXCC criteria needs to be honored at all times. Others see the criteria as not being engraved on a tablet of stone but that the rules facilitate "entities" dynamically in the context of an ever-changing world. Both views have some merit and should be appreciated.

Western Sahara (S0), another disputed DXCC country, is currently recognized by 48 countries and even today it is not a member of the United Nations nor does it have a dedicated ITU prefix. At the time Amateur Radio entered this desert country, no one had argued that it belonged to DXCC. When Swains Island was up for DXCC discussion it was decided that the DXCC criteria had to be changed and so Swains entered the scene. Swains was added not decades ago - but just recently.

Before Swains Island, DXCC used three "measuring sticks"; UN membership, ITU prefix or IARU society. In facilitating Swains, the ARRL Board of Directors decided to keep the UN and ITU parts but changed the IARU rule to recording of an event by the US Department of State, which again opened up another gate for more DXCC entities.

Now Kosovo meets the highest US Department of State criteria - Kosovo is an independent state recognized by the United States and easily passes the US State Department gate, if that gate is honored in the right spirit. With DXCC rules in place as they existed before Swains, Kosovo would enter through the IARU gate because of its permanent amateur radio population and its national society, SHRAK.

The above is just an illustration of the dynamics of the DXCC at any given time, following the dynamics of the world.

The world outside Kosovo abounds with many other examples that offer a slightly different perspective in the international arena. Another oft-mentioned entity - Northern Cyprus - is recognized only by Turkey, and the situation regarding Cyprus remains deadlocked. Two new cases - South Ossetia and Abkhazia - are recognized by the Russian Federation and probably soon by Belarus (EW) and Venezuela (YV). If they ever achieve wider recognition apart from the countries subject to the current conflict, they will become another set of DXCC candidates.

An immediate UN membership gate is pointed more in the direction of those that get themselves established with no gun fire. The UN's potential for resolving conflicts to its own satisfaction is seriously hampered by the Security Council veto structure that plays a major role in eliminating new countries at that gate.

So, the ARRL is left to define a workable recognition based country criteria - be it qualitative and/or quantitative. Kosovo with its almost 50 recognitions is the first one at the gate. Delaying action on the Republic of Kosovo so that it does not qualify for anything is not an option for the ARRL. Kosovo is a country with a permanent amateur radio population and therefore Kosovar amateurs should be welcomed to our community.

Back to the practical world; YU8/OH2R QSLs for the first amateur radio operation from the Republic of Kosovo were printed last week by Gennady, UX5UO and they will be in the mails in a few days. We thank Gennady for his efforts and support in making these full-color cards meet the spirit of the Kosovo case as they represent a special moment for those involved with the Kosovo project and those who follow world events as well as the development of the DXCC program.

You can view these cards at
http://www.dailydx.com/ Kosovo.htm

You may read more about YU8/OH2R and Kosovo at
http://www.n4gn.com/yu8/

[from the Desk of Martti Laine, OH2BH]