Michael P. O'Connor

While doing the traffic net tonight we were talking about how we should send traffic out, just for practice on handling traffic. Some one suggested that we should use the handling instructions of “HXG” so we would get a return on the traffic. I was thinking since my sister is in Austria I was wondering if about 3rd party traffic agreements with Austria. So I ended up looking it up. What I found interesting, even though Austria is considered a friendly nation, we don’t have an agreement with them. But here were the kicker was, Cuba which is a nation that is considered an enemy nation we have agreements with. So the long and short of it is, if I wanted to send a Radio gram to my sister in Austria I can not, but if I knew some one in Cuba I could send them a message. I just found that odd, I would have guessed that things would have been the other way around.
Here is a page that lists countries we have 3rd party agreements with.

Well 2 days ago I finally got all my information in the FCC database correct. And as of today, the information has prorogated out to the other web sites on the net (read qrz.com and arrl.org) so now my information on the internet that is attached to my call sign is correct so my ham friends should be able get the correct information when they look for it now. It to enough effort to get it right, and 3 updates to the FCC database for them to finally get the information correct, but it is finally done.

Today on the traffic net I sent out my first out of section message. It was mainly a delivery report, so it was not much. Its final destination is On, Canada. It was the first time I ever sent out a message so I did make a few mistakes but I got though it. But the people on the traffic net helped me along with it, so it should start it journey across the boarders today or tomorrow, I am not sure on how the HF traffic nets work so I don’t know.

I just check the FCC website. And now my name is correct, and so is my address. Finally it is all update to the correct information. The time is now about 2:00am EST (11:00pm PST, the time zone that this server is set too) so in a few hours qrz will have my call sign information updated from the FCC’s database and it should then be correct there too, I just looked over at the ARRL’s web site and they still l have the data from yesterday, but they should be updated soon. I wonder what the FCC is thinking now that the info on my info has been changed 3 times in as many days. In about a week I should finally get a print out of the new updated license in the mail. The usually send out a paper that has 2 copies of the license on it, one for a wallet and one that can be framed, this time I will be framing it and hang it near all my radios. And the wallet one I will probably just laminate before I put it in my wallet.

Ok now thing are just going odd here, I first got my address updated. Now I got my last name corrected in the database (it was misspelled) but they reverted my address to the old one. This is almost to the point where it is funny. I have applied for a password for my FRN number and I will see if I can update it on the FCC website myself. I wonder what the people at the FCC will wonder with 3 changes to my license in such a short time. If this does not work, I don’t know what to do next, probaly just a letter of to FCC.