EuCW Bulletin No 2024/02 ======================== 1) European CW greetings from your Chairman, presently in Mui Ne, Vietnam. Unfortunately no activity from XV9D this time, as my licence is still pending renewal. However a bit of Remote activity through somewhat shaky internet lines using SM6LRR and SJ6R callsigns. I would like to REALLY thank all of you for making an effort to share news for this newsletter. This kind of generous sharing of information from many of our clubs makes the editing work for the Newsletter a true pleasure. I hope we can continue in the same spirit for the next newsletter to be published in the beginning of July. Just start mentally preparing and start making some bullet points that can develop into useful contributions in three months from now. Thank you so much in advance for making it possible to hopefully share an even more interesting newsletter the next time. 2) AGCW introduced a new interesting Activity Week - "Morse telegraphy - An Intangible Cultural Heritage", 06-10 May 2024 0:00 UTC - 23:59 UTC. Europe Day is 09 May 2024. More info can be found here: https://eucw.org/agcw/ich.txt ICH (Intangible Cultural Heritage) is a UNESCO program. 3) The normal AGCW-DL activity week will take place the week before Pentecost (Whitsun), 7 weeks after Easter. Remember this is regular QSOs, exchange of at least RST, QTH and name. No contest style! No serial numbers to be used. The rules can be found here: https://eucw.org/agcw/aw.txt 4) We ask all members to spread the information about our EuCW QRS week as follows: https://eucw.org/euqrs.html The rules are available in several languages. (Thanks to Martin DL1GBZ for info) 5) AGCW-NTC Friendship QSO party. Rules are unchanged, you can find them at https://pi4ntc.nl/agcw-ntcqp. Please submit logs to Lothar DL1DXL (who is the new contest manager for this QSO party). 6) NTC (Netherlands Telegraphy Club) has a new board member: Mike PD5MI. Being a software engineer with 20 years of experience he will start with the integration of our QSO party (submission and results) into the web pages at https://pi4ntc.nl 7) NTC QSO parties remain a success. Join the fun on every third Thursday of the month from 19-20 UTC. Upcoming dates are: April 18, May 16 and June 20. (Thanks to Joop PG4I for info) 8) Gerard F6EEQ shares some excellent Best Practise experience related to UFT (Union Française des Télégraphistes) participation in various Ham Exhibitions. During 2023, UFT took part in five different exhibitions. In March 2024 (in Clermont, about 50 km north of Paris), UFT met more people with a wish to discuss CW, learn telegraphy. A lot of young or very young persons were interested to try the keys, and get their "Telegraphist Certificate". Also several YLs showed CW interest, asking keen questions about learning, rhythm (how do you know this is a dit !!!), speed... UFT is getting new members and managing to keep most of the existing ones as well. News from France is very well appreciated. Merci! 9) Several activities in the pipeline from GQRP: - International QRP Day runs on June 17th every year. In 2024 this will be on a Monday. The QRP Centres of Activity (CoA) on all bands are excellent places to start. We aim to repeat the success of last year, where all (but one!) of the Regional Variations of the Club callsign G5LOW were on air on the 17th and during the Summer Sizzler. - Suffolk Trophy. The GQRP Club has traditionally organized the Suffolk Trophy on the International QRP Day. Power and limits as for the Chelmsley Trophy but with operation for six hours only, split into not more than two periods. Contacts are with any Region 1 countries; normal QSO, no serial numbers. Scoring: Each Region 1 country counts one (1) point on each band. The total score is the total of IARU countries on the bands used. Only one contact per country per band is allowed irrespective of mode. The other station may be QRO. Please include Name, address, call, power used, equipment, time, call \& band for each contact. A trophy to the winner plus runner up certificates. - Summer Sizzler. This stress-free "get-on-air" GQRP Club event runs between Saturday 15th and Sunday 23th of June. It is not a contest, rather a relaxed activity that we can use to meet and greet new and old friends, to test our latest homebrew creations, and to fill the bands with friendly QRP signals. QRP power levels only, the other station might be QRO. The best log submitted will be awarded The GM3OXX Trophy, with certificates available for runner-ups. We will also award five more certificates, namely The Busy-Bee certificate} (for contacts made using exclusively homebrew equipment), The Tiny-Flea certificate (for QRPp contacts, i.e., using 1W output or less), The Old-Beetle certificate (for contacts made using vintage rigs, 25 years or older), The Iron-Knee certificate (for POTA, SOTA, /P, /M or /MM operations), and The Ladybird certificate (for logs submitted by hams licensed less than three years ago). (Thanks to Enzo M0KTZ for valuable GQRP news) 10) Stathis SV5DKL shares some truly interesting news from Manos SV1DAY / GTC (Greek Telegraphy Club): “When at SZ1A for a contest, about a year ago, Сostas, SV1DPI shared with me that the demand for CW skills is substantial in the Greek amateur radio community, most probably in the international one too, but the training offerings are limited. He had heard me talking about my positive experience with CW Academy and the merits of working CW after my graduation, so Costas suggested that I organize CW Academy classes for Greek students, but in Greek, especially for those for whom English is a barrier. So, I accepted the challenge, although I was a bit skeptical (and still am) at the higher classes, where "Short Stories" are introduced as part of the home practice, because they are in English. Costas published appropriate announcements in April 2023. We organized an on-line first meeting, to present CW Academy's goals, method and requirements. The audience was 17 potential students, out of whom two were YL. I explained to them the method and the personal commitment they must have (one hour daily practice minimum), to achieve the goals of the CW Academy. Two OM and one YL were experienced enough already, so they did not register for Beginners Class. Out of the rest 14, only 7 decided that they could commit to the personal practice requirements of CW Academy and decided to start the Beginners class. After the first on-line meeting, and having the final number of registered students for Beginners class, I requested appropriate permission to translate in Greek the English curriculum for Beginners, with the help of Fanis, SV2BBK. The Greek version was translated with the valuable contribution of Costas, SV1DPI and Fannis, SV2BBK, it is published at CW Academy web site and the Beginners class started in September and completed in October 2023 semester. The enthusiasm was great and the 6 out of the 7 students wanted to continue to the next level. One more student joined the Fundamental class and one resigned. The Fundamental class was completed in January-February 2024 successfully and the team is looking forward to start the Intermediate class in May-June semester. Some of the students participated already at some contests, while others enjoy rag chewing. The CW Academy effect is exceptional and all students are impressed by the personal progress they have achieved. The above I personally find very useful and an example that all our EuCW member clubs may "steal with pride". The Greek achievement is well worth to be applauded and we are looking forward to meeting the new Greek YL and OM CW operators in contests and for normal QSOs in the future (Chairman's comment). 11) Lacy HA3NU reminds us about the HA3NS MEMORIAL SPRINT CONTEST 2024, in memory of a great CW enthusiast and founder of HACWG: Date and time of the contest in this year: 07. June 2024. (Friday), 1st period 7MHz 19.00-19.29 UTC, 2nd period 3.5MHz 19.30-19.59 UTC. Frequencies: 7010-7040 KHz and 3510-3560 KHz. Mode: CW only. Categories: Single op HP (more than 100W) Single op LP (100W or less). Exchange: 599 + membership number for HACWG members, 599 + NM to all other participants Call for contest: CQ NS Multiplier: no multipliers. Score: Each valid contact counts 1 point. The final score is the total number of valid contacts. QSY (Sprint) rule: If a station makes a QSO after a CQ or QRZ he/she has to QSY at least 1KHz from that frequency to continue the competition. Awards: downloadable electronic awards will be available List of HACWG members: https://ha3kna.webnode.hu/hacwg/ or https://radioamator.honlapepites.hu/?p=7827 Log: Log upload available in Cabrillo format to: https://log.mrasz.hu Suggested software: DXlog or N1MM with HA3NS.udc If you are not able to create Cabrillo or upload your log, please send it via E-mail to ha3kna@tolna.net Log deadline: not later than 7 days after the contest. 12) SCAG (Scandinavian CW Activity Group has the following information: - The first activity for the new year was the Straight Key Day the Jan 1st. There was a lot of nice telegraphy on the bands and the winner was DJ6UX Eddi. We also had a lottery and the winner for a Begali Spark key was SM5TA, Lasse in Boxholm. Big congratulations to all winners from everyone in SCAG. - The yearly annual SCAG meeting will take place April 17th via Zoom. - The third Thursday every month at 19.00-20.30 UTC we have a club evening on the bands. For more information, check our homepage. - SC50AG Special callsign https://www.qrz.com/db/SC50AG - We were using the special call SC50AG to celebrate the 50-year anniversary for the Scandinavian CW Activity Group - SCAG. The activity was limited to February 2024. All stations worked will receive a QSL-card via the bureau and a confirmation via LOTW. SCAG was started in 1974 with a mission to promote and preserve the use of telegraphy - CW - on our ham bands. This mission remains as the focus of the club. Maybe more so in these days when you don't have to master telegraphy to become a radio amateur. However, over the decades we still see a steady interest in preserving the use of telegraphy on our ham bands and in recent years also an increasing interest to learn the morse code. - SCAG is the proud sponsor of Swedish club activities related to learning morse code or other activities related to our mission to promote and preserve the use of telegraphy on our ham bands. - SCAG arranges Straight Key Day twice a year, on New Year's Day in January and on Midsummers Day at the end of June. (Thanks to Hakan SM5OCK for valuable and interesting information) 73 de 3W/RM2D Mats - This year more QRV as SM6LRR, SJ6R and also as YB0LRR/x _______________________________________________ EuCW mailing list EuCW@lists.posteo.de https://lists.posteo.de/listinfo/eucw