One of the first things I discovered when I restarted the hobby almost 2 years ago is how easy it is to decode the various digital modes these days. I played with MultiPSK and received a weather fax from JOMOC Royal Navy Northwood on 2618.5 kHz. The quality was quite poor as I was still working with a simple indoor MLA30+ loop, which picked up a lot of noise. But the JOMOC ID was clearly visible:
As I didn’t have an email address I sent my report by regular mail. One and a half year later I received a beautiful paper QSL card. And a letter apologizing for the delay. Well, it was worth waiting for:
Apart from the long wait there was a complication in receiving this QSL. For some reason or another a customs declaration form was attached to the envelope. Indicating that the value of the contents was 10 GBP. And prior to delivery by PostNL I had to pay 8 Euros taxes and admin fee as the UK is no longer part of the EU. A complaint could only be filed after payment.
Upon reception of the QSL I tried to file the complaint online. But PostNL forgot to properly register delivery in their systems so that didn’t work… In other words: basically I was taxed for something they were not even able to demonstrate that it was actually delivered😂 . The PostNL helpdesk explained that all I could do was send a letter to their head offices… in the end I got a 2.36 Euro refund… I left it at that…
Now That’s a very nice QSL card, old school, congrats Peter. I do not know if they a very active on this frequency and mode? But Will monitor the freq from time till time…
I think they are Ruud, you can find the schedule in this nice document: https://www.weather.gov/media/marine/rfax.pdf. Shouldn’t be too difficult if you are out in the field with your radioset.
Nice one Peter ! Since the early 90s I am a fan of weatherfax and still receive some once in a while. Recently I got Bangkok Meteo and JMH Japan, but not that strong signal though.
Sad isn’t it, the whole Brexit thing also got me mad when receiving something from the UK, and they force you to pay customs and taxes, or it will be RTS :-/
And even for a QSL card they ask taxes….my goodness….just sad.
Anyway, 73 and good DX !
Patrick