Cretan Blog-January 2014

As it is the first of January – Happy New Whatsit . . . Now that it is 2014, where are all these cheap supersonic flights that we were promised some years ago? And all this electricity from nuclear power that would be too cheap to meter? Politicians promises eh?

A shorter missive this time as I have no January RadComic yet, Seems it is awaiting my arrival in the UK so will not get to see it until around 10th Jan. However, I don’t think there can be much in it as I have not been forwarded comments about this or that.

I gather from the news that there has been some weather in the UK around Christmas time. This year we were fortunate as both Christmas Day and Boxing Day we sunny, warm and around 19°C, so there were people swimming down in Elounda both days. Of course the following day it poured down but at least it was still mild at 17°C.

Windows 7
I mentioned Windoze 7 updates the other month, well, it has happened again! Turned on the laptop, went to check t’internet and noticed that something was different. It seems wonderful Microsoft gave me Internet Explorer 11 (what happened to 9 and 10?) without me asking for it or me even clicking to say I would accept the download. Bloody cheek! I removed it from the laptop but when trying to connect to t’internet later, the machine said that it could not find a browser. Had to restore back to a date in November to get IE 8 back on so that things could work again and reset the things so it does not download anything without asking for written permission.

I am not a computer whiz but am seriously looking at putting Linux on my old XP machine and seeing if that works better and without all this bloody Microsoft hassle . . . However, recently someone local suggested Google Chrome as being far better than IE but I have never played with it. I think I will investigate . . .

I imagine that my Microsoft experience will not be enhanced this month when I return to the UK to buy a new laptop for our Daughter. Seems they all have Windoze 8.1 on them now and looking at the books, it is not only very different but bloody difficult to get to where you want to go or find your way around, mainly ‘cos it is designed for all these damn touchy screen things.

MixW and RTTY
Anyone use MixW for RTTY? I use it for contesting but find that, despite downloading and setting up the relevant contest dll files, the software does not score correctly. For example, I set everything up for the WAE contest and ran some dummy QSOs. Not probs apart from the fact that my score showed as 420. Running the same dummy QSOs through N1MM showed a score of 1,300.

Now, I recently had a small bash in the OK RTTY and according to MixW scored a big fat zero but N1MM said I should have 8,440 points. I find that running all my QSOs again through different software just to get a score is a pain in the derriere so does anyone have an answer or a suggestion as to what I am doing wrong?

When in a PSK QSO, at the end I always say that I do not QSL via these eQSL or LoTW things. If a chap says he only QSLs via eQSL, fine, he won’t get an eQSL confirmation from me ‘cos I don’t do (or understand) it and we know where we stand.

Why then, 12 months later, do I receive a nice QSL card from the same chap, via the Buro, asking me to QSL?

I know I have mentioned this before, but it does bug me. Do these people now realise that this eQSL rubbish is not really a proper QSL and now want a nice piece of card they can hold in their hand or show to their Mates down at the local Club?

January awards…..
As it is the New Year, how about a quick little award to play for this month? The award is sponsored by Brave Radio Friends and the rules are simple: During the month of January 2014 work as many DXCC entities as possible. No band or mode restrictions. All entities count only once, regardless of band or mode.

For the award a minimum of 20 DXCC entities is required. The number of DXCC entities worked will be entered in the award. Send your application with log extract (please pdf, doc, xls or jpg) by e-mail to de3ear@darc.de . Deadline of the application is February 28, 2014.  More info here.

You can only apply for a pdf-version of the award and there is no fee. I will have a go but as I will be in the UK for a week and will have taken all the antennas down prior to the trip, I might just scrape the 20 countries needed when I get back and put things together again.

 

This may strike a chord with some:

“There are two things in life that I will never understand –

Decaf Coffee and Non-Alcoholic beer.”

 

Good DX in 2014 es hope to catch some of you at the Club on the 10th.

Yammas!

Dick. ‘XBN/9

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