You are here: / / 2024

7O2WX – Socotra Island, Yemen

/2 Comments/in , /by

Vladimir OK2WX starts his latest DXpedition to Socotra Island, Yemen on January 25. An announcement is up on DXNews.com. This amateur is very experienced but this site which is approximately 500 kilometers from the Yemenese shoreline seems a little foolhardy. With USAF FA-18s and Houthi missiles flying overhead, his Elecraft and ICOM rigs will be buzzing. But that’s only my humble opinion.

Perhaps it’s the whiskey; perhaps it’s the gin.

Check out his call sign on QRZ.

By the way, should you make a contact with him (he’s will be on the 160 meter contest this weekend), drop me a line via the Contact US tab and I’ll highlight your contact here.

Radio on the darkside – VHF

/2 Comments/in /by

Four IslandHF members decided to do some radio work this weekend on the darkside – VHF! (That comment is very tongue in check.)

Many thanks to four members who volunteered their time to work as radio operators for the CARHA Pacific Cup hockey tournament in and around Victoria. Rick VE7TK, Ron VE7IRR, Alan VE7PE and Glenn VA7HC pulled multiple shifts at three different hockey rinks around town.

Hats off (face masks, perhaps?) to you gentlemen. 🙂

QSL query using Bard

/0 Comments/in /by

Bard is Google’s experimental, conversational AI chatbot. I’ve started taking an online AI course to find out about and how to use Bard, Google AI, Gemini and other Google tools.

I decided to ask Bard about a QSL card image with the question, “What is this an image of?” I pasted the QSL image into the AI prompt. The prompt consisted only of the image and the question. This how Bard answered.

Unfortunately this cut & paste is a little blurry because I have enlarged it. But the AI recognized the image as a QSL card and got most of its information correct. Pretty cool.