I was very pleased with myself when I worked TX5K during the expedition.
When I looked at the QSL info on their web site and on
QRZ.com they made it abundantly clear that they were going to use LoTW. There was no mention of
time constraints either.
It has been six months since the DX expedition and they have
as yet not uploaded their logs to LoTW.
I decided to play it safe and used the Club Log OQRS system to
request a paper QSL card. This was 2 weeks ago. I followed up with an
email to see if a QSL card was dispatched and I got no response from them.
With all the frustrations of getting QSOs confirmed, I am
starting to think maybe I should consider a change of policy. Forget about getting QSOs confirmed. I know what I worked and what I haven’t worked, that
should be sufficient. The chase remains the same the only difference is that I
don’t have a piece of paper to hang on the wall. Is it really that important
anyway?
FWIW I think It is only a matter
of time before all the clusters will show (flag) who uses LoTW and who does not, for
example DX For Me cluster.
IMHO The DX chasers will in time ignore the non-users of LoTW and only chace the known users of LoTW.
http://dxfor.me/
IMHO The DX chasers will in time ignore the non-users of LoTW and only chace the known users of LoTW.
http://dxfor.me/
<Rant_Off>
Hi Pierre,
ReplyDeleteI see on their blog that they will be uploading to LoTW on October 1:
http://ky6r.com/2013/08/23/lotw-upload-goal-date-october-1/
I never did the OQRS request nor did I send a card to their manager so I have no paper card either but I think you will receive yours soon. Their manager (N2OO) is very reliable in that regard.
73,
John AE5X
John,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback. This is indeed good news. It is a pity that this information is not available on the normal sites i.e. QRZ or the TX5K web site.
My beef is not targeted specifically to this expedition.
It seems to me that some of the expeditions only upload to LoTW after the “sponsorship” dries up. That is perfectly acceptable I suppose, but then they should state that from the outset. We can then decide how we are going to deal with the issue.
It is a double edged sword I guess, the expeditions need the hype and they need to make many QSOs as possible, this makes their case easier with seeking sponsorship from the big corporate suppliers for the next big expedition.
Personally I believe it is wrong to use the QSL process to extort money to fund the expeditions.
Pierre
ReplyDeleteThe QSL card took some time to arrive, but if you did the OQRS you will get it, some delays in the printing and volume of request can make the delay some times bigger but OCT 1st is LoTW