EuCW Bulletin No 2024/04 ======================== 1) First I would like to truly apologize for a both somewhat delayed and also considerably shorter Newsletter this time. The main reason is that I have now ended my work assignment in Indonesia, and the beginning of October has been busy with moving back from Jakarta to Moscow. But also to be honest, a very limited amount of contributions from the clubs in EuCW :( Please next time support me with your contributions and there are still many clubs that never or very seldom share any activity. This is a sad development honestly. In one month I will probably start another international assignment, so please stay tuned for updates regarding new location until the end of this year. I have also slowly started to get my station on the air from Moscow Region, but still only on 10-20 meters using my TS 590S, OM-2500 and the SP7IDX hexbeam. My ambition is also to add at least 30 and 80 meter dipoles before I leave for new adventures. Band conditions have been great, but of course with high geomagnetic activity. 2. The International Amateur Radio Union (Region 3) is undertaking a review of the 40 Metre Band Plan. This is being done under the banner of Harmonisation, and seeks to address many of the inconsistencies in the 40 metre band plans across different countries and regions. You can review the chart produced by the WIA in the link below illustrating the differences between Band Plans across Region 3. One of Australia's representative bodies, the Wireless Institute of Australia (WIA) has taken the lead on behalf of the IARU, Region 3. Whilst this is a worthy aspiration, we are concerned that the proposed solutions are discriminating against CW operators. CW operators may end up with as little as 25kHz at the bottom of the band. Indeed, one option will see our allocation restricted to 7000 - 7025kHz, which would also exclude some USA operators from the Band altogether. The objective of this Save 40 metres CW initiative is to raise awareness with CW operators worldwide and to advocate for a fair and reasonable allocation on 40 metres for all CW operators. How to navigate this website https://www.save40metrescw.com/ : Read the Consultation Paper first. Read and consider the Key Issues Read the Call to Action Stay up to date by visiting our News Blog from time to time 3) The G-QRP Club had a month-full of on-the-band activity in September, with most of the regional variation of the Club callsign (G#5LOW) activated during the month, ant seven overseas special event stations from all over Europe. A real success, which saw dozens of operators on the bands, and lots of CW activity. The next major Club event will be the Winter Sports. This is NOT a contest, but more a gathering of likeminded souls on the bands on, or around the QRP frequencies. This all takes place twixt the Christmas pud and the New Years hangover. To be more precise it runs from Boxing Day until New Years Day inclusive. The G4DQP Trophy is awarded annually to the best log submitted of QRP contacts during the clubs Winter Sports. All logs and claims must be sent to Enzo M0KTZ (via email) by 7th February each year. 4) The HACWG held his annual "HA3NS Memorial Sprint Contest" on 1st June. This very short - one hour - contest became a popular CW event. Well over 100 CW fans from more than 20 countries participated in two categories. We had 65 LP and 36 HP entrants. All participants had the possibilty two download an online award after the contest. Results are available here: https://log.mrasz.hu/results/6652071b0507c1dca92abe95/final?eventId=6652071b0507c1dca92abe95 Thanks Lacy HA3NU (Chairman of HACWG) for the contribution. 5) YL3JD, Hans informs us of the Latvian Mechanical Key Activity, Friday the 11th of October. Time : Start 18:00 UTC till 19:00 UTC. Duration 1 hour. Exchange : RST AGE/Type of key. Band : 80 meters Type of key : S for Straight key B for Bug C for Cootie or Side Swiper. For 2024 the dates are set to: 11 Oct 2024 – 18:00 UTC 06 Dec 2024 – 18:00 UTC Hope to hear you all on Friday the 11th with great sounding mechanical key music. All information, log upload and certificates can be found on: https://yl3jd.fizioikskile.lv/mkey/ 6) For 2025 AGCW invites all EUCW friends to participate in its permanent activities: AGCW Activities: A) Friendship Activity: AGCW fosters friendships and rag chews on the top 5 kHz of all CW only bands. Submit all QSOs over a duration of 10 minutes. ( eucw.org/agcw/fsa.txt) B) Bug and Cootie Activity: This promotes the use of bugs and sideswipers on the top 10 kHz, Submit all B+C QSOs there over a duration of 5 min, even those with users of other keys. (eucw.org/agcw/buc.txt). Both activities are widely compatible with EUCW's Snakes and Ladders and ICWC's Top9 activity. AGCW applies synergy instead of competing with these great CW on-air activities. This means that many if not most contacts in our activities do qualify vor Top9 and S+L, too. Upcoming AGCW Contests: 16-10-2024 Semi-Automatic Party (eucw.org/agcw/semi.txt). 01-01-2025 Happy New Year Contest (eucw.org/agcw/hny.txt). While contests are fun to some of us they are just hay fires in terms of band occupancy. Therefore, we strongly recommend the permanent activities because they are more resilient, and they take place where the CW community struggles with intruders. Unless we use our frequencies we will lose them. Eyeball meetings: Future meetings will be held near Fulda (JO40sm46) in central Germany. 7) Although not exactly a club activity, but still a very interesting CW activity, Vlado Z35M from MCWG made a HF actication (CW of course) on 22.9.2024 from a cable car cabin, second time after first attempt in 2018. This time two CW QSOs (OZ and LY) were done on 20m CW with a power of 5W and a short vertical antenna. The entire activation lasted 10 minutes in a cabin with four other unknown persons. Probably the first such QSOs globally. CW from everywhere! 73 de Mats RM2D (SM6LRR, SJ6R and YB0LRR) _______________________________________________ EuCW mailing list EuCW@lists.posteo.de https://lists.posteo.de/listinfo/eucw