Digifest 2012

This is a friendly reminder to those who love exotic digital modes and/or still don’t have nice RigExpert Antenna Analyzer :-).
The Annual Digifest will be held as usual on the 1st full weekend of June (2012 dates are June 2nd and 3rd ).
This is going to be Digifest’s 5th year and its popularity is growing with last year’s received LOGs number of more than 200.
Peculiarity of this Contest is the great variety of different categories of the participants in 5 digital modes: RTTY 75, BPSK 63, MFSK 16, HELLSCHREIBER, OLIVIA
and the most fair points calculation based on the distance between the stations.
The Contest consists of 3 convenient periods (8 hours each) during the weekend.
To add more adrenalin into this competition a special feature will be offered to those who like competing in real time – online results will be presented on a server.
And, of course, a lot of real nice prizes, mostly RigExpert AA-230 and AA-30 Antenna Analyzers and RigExpert USB Interfaces. All prizes sponsored by RigExpert Ukraine Ltd.
Since the number of the participants is relatively small and the most populated competing area is Europe, the “far away” stations from NA, SA, Africa, Asia and Australia are at great advantage.
From the last years’ experience those stations were the most prize winners. Considering this and also to support growing participation from Europe,
the sponsors “double” the prizes – i.e. separate main prizes are now available both for Europe and for the “rest of the World”.
But wait, that’s not all! For those of you who won’t be able to win “main prize” in respected category, there will be a lot of small gifts, like T-shirts and paper awards.
All the prizes will be mailed to participants’ home addresses.
The results are usually available just 2 weeks after the end of the Contest,
So, lets just meet on the 1st weekend of June and have fun!
Complete rules can be found at http://www.mixw.net/misc/DigiFest/index.html
and http://www.rigexpert.com/index?s=main&f=digifest end http://ut7fp.kiev.ua

FCC is seeking comments

FCC is seeking comments regarding impediments to amateur radio ops. Please take the time and let them know the type of issues you run into. Especially you folks in HOA's.....

Read the Public notice here.

QTH scammer warning

We've seen an alarming increase in the number of scammers utilizing our website (and it seems most other ham radio classified sites, too, based on reports coming in). I wanted to take this opportunity to explain what some of these scammers are doing, in hopes it will better protect you from them, when you are selling equipment on the QTH.com Classifieds at http://swap.qth.com.

 

Common scammer traits:

 

1) They will use some else's callsign, and they will create an email address that contains that callsign, usually with a free email provider like gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc. They sometimes pose as foreign callsigns (especially UK and Spain) but recently have been using USA callsigns.

 

2) They will sometimes post "For Sale" ads, but also will sometimes answer "Wanted" ads. Usually the prices are a little too good to be true.

 

3) They will use pictures of equipment they have found on the Internet (they don't really own the equipment).

 

4) They seem to like payments via Western Union (no protection for the buyer), but will also use PayPal (hoping to drain their account before the buyer realizes they have been scammed).

 

5) They seem to know ham radio jargon. For all we know, these scammers are hams, but we can't be sure.

 

6) They are sophisticated enough to use "proxy servers" so their IP address cannot be easily detected. This makes it difficult for us to block the scammers. We are constantly tweaking our filters to block these guys when possible, but it is a constant cat and mouse game.

 

What can you do to protect yourself?

 

* Ask for a phone number and call the person before agreeing on any deal. This is probably the #1 way to expose the rats.

 

* Check to see if the email address they used matches what is listed for that person on their QRZ.com profile. It could be a red flag if there is a mismatch.

 

* Be especially cautious of dealing with foreign hams. Not all foreign hams are scammers, of course! Just be extra careful!!

 

* Never use Western Union. Be very cautious of using Money Orders and Cashier's Checks. PayPal and Credit Cards seem to be the best option, as far as having any buyer protection. Money Orders & Cashier's Checks are perfectly acceptable if you are absolutely sure who you are dealing with.

 

* Read all of my "Safe Trading Tips" at http://chat.qth.com/viewtopic.php?t=12

About 100,000 ads are placed each year in the QTH.com Classifieds, and only a tiny, tiny fraction wind up being fraudulent. I do not want to scare you into thinking that it is unsafe to trade online. Rather, I simply want to arm you with knowledge, so that you will be able to sniff out the bad guys, and stay safe.

 

73 - Scott KA9FOX

QTH.com Ham Radio Classifieds

http://swap.qth.com

2012 MS Bike ride

As we are all aware, The 2012 MS Bike ride is right around the corner. As in years past, any Licensed Amateur is welcome to assist. If you would like to participate, please go to https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups&hl=en#!forum/bikems-central-florida

They can always use extra radio ops.