On behalf of Wolf, DF7TF, I would like to report, that he met a TV camera crew during one of his last activations. They had a brief conversation and agreed to produce a feature about SOTA (2…3 minutes in the “Abendschau” - date of broadcast to be reported here).
They will do a joint activation tomorrow, Monday 2nd September, from 9:00 utc on Obereck DM/BW-016. They expect to be QRV on and off for several hours.
Wolf asks Chasers and Activators to watch out for his spots and give him a call if possible.
The camera crew will do several takes and therefore might halt the activation from time to time. The procedure will most likely be different compared to normal activations. Please be patient if there is silence for brief periods.
Hello everyone,
the above mentioned feature is to be broadcast tomorrow, Wednesday September 4th, at around 18:15 local time (16:15 utc) on “SWR Fernsehen, Landesschau Baden-Württemberg”.
I’m not sure if it’s possible to watch it outside of DL.
The link to the livestream is:
It doesn’t like me try to watch it from Switzerland so probably you need a DE IP address. I would have watched it from work tomorrow as the European datacentre was in Munich and Germany was were we exited the company network to the interweb. But the EU datacentre is now in Eindhoven so that will not work either
I note you’ve been using your Swiss VPN for several years with some success. Here, I’ve been using NordVPN with similar success to get IP addresses from many locations around the world, after having tried Surfshark with poor results. The NordVPN service may not work for everybody (in terms of costs?), but I can recommend it.
Well, I’ve been watching this stream for 55 minutes from 18:15 local onwards, and there’s been no sign of the SOTA activation section. So, I’m switching it off and getting on with other things…
The problem with all VPNs is not whether your VPN adequately secures your data between you and your VPN server in transit, they all do.It’s whether you believe them when they say no access log, no IP logging. Really? If you are using “somebody else’s computer” then it’s not private. And if I ran such a company I damn well log everything. I wouldn’t be prepared to do porridge for my customer’s crimes
So why do I use one? Well in the UK you are innocent until proven guilty and so because I’m not guilty, there is no need for the gov to be able to see what I do. They can get a warrant if they want to see what is happening. But it will need to be a warrant in Switzerland. How much do I trust the Swiss government? More than my own (of any particular left/right persuasion)!
As I understand it, there has been a last-minute change to the program in terms of broadcasting. If you miss the upcoming livestream, there is usually a recording in various media libraries to watch afterwards. We’ll see if we get any further information and will of course let you know here
Apparently Südwestrundfunk has changed their program without telling us. We were as surprised as some of you were. Anyway, I’m sorry for any inconveniance.
As @DM3FAM has written: The feature will appear in the media library. We’ll let you know here once it’s available.
OK, that’s an aspect which does not worry me at all personally, since I do nothing illegal, nor indeed immoral, or anything of a suspicious or inflammatory nature online. I just use my VPN to access regular films and TV shows in other countries, mostly the US or the UK, to overcome difficulties presented by the international copyright laws.
I could understand people not wishing to be traced, or having their online activities logged, but for me that’s not an issue.
Just viewed the video clip - short and sweet! One small nit-pick - the article states that Wolf uses the “CB-Funknetz” - or CB-airwaves - to make his contacts. It’s the same mistake made by many by-standers when they ask a SOTA activator what they’re doing with all those wires and fishing pole - “is it CB?” Try getting out of that one…
Very true. Most of the commercial ones are owned by a small handful of companies, many of which have some sketchy histories - Kape anyone?
If you use a commercial VPN, keep split tunnelling in mind. Example, run banking applications via split tunnel so it doesn’t go through the VPN.
Unless you are well able to maintain it, I’d suggest not ‘rolling your own’. If you don’t trust either solution - and why should you - you could also look in to profiling and app separation on mobile devices, for example. Also look at tab containers in browsers such as Firefox.
Bottom line is don’t believe a word VPN providers say. Use them wisely.
The map above (from a VPN provider!) is insightful.
I’ll admit to being very naiive when it comes to things like this. I simply cannot believe in my heart of hearts that the world is as corrupt as it actually is … unfortunately, I do know that it is.
Insightful indeed, and troubling: it opens several cans of worms. How to choose a VPN which is secure, and which does not seek to screw its’ customers/users? Is there such a thing?
