After a lovely run of 19 QSOs in 21 minutes, on 7.032MHz CW this morning (on Cloud SP-015), I decided to have a go at 15m on the same 40m dipole antenna. I called a few times, and was answered by “ZL3ANB”, who was initially a very good 559 signal, but then soon very weak at 339. I managed to struggle through and complete the contact, but still had my doubts.
Since returning home, I cannot find any evidence of the existence of ZL3ANB through QRZ.com, the DX cluster or Google. I thought there might be some tomfoolery going on, as there was someone pirating my call on 7.032, trying unsuccessfully to disrupt proceedings.
Frustratingly, I still don’t know for sure that ZL3ANB was not a genuine QSO, as 15m was open this morning, but it doesn’t look likely, all things considered.
Many thanks to everyone that called me. It was nice to be back on 40m CW, and making 27 contacts, including S2S with DL5WW/P on DM/NW-213. A pleasant morning.
In reply to M1EYP:
Tom,
the following link is for the NZ equivalent of the RSGB. There is an online callsign lookup on the page. Your ZL, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to be on their records. Shame, would have been a good one.
The ZL SMART database is actually down for maintenance until Monday. I put in three known ZL callsigns and they all came back negative too, then I read about the update on the home page.
Hopefully it was genuine and Tom can check again after the database is updated.
You might try emailing NZART Tom to see whether they have any info on ZL3ANB (nzart@nzart.org.nz). I contacted SARL in South Africa when I was looking for a licensed friend who emigrated there and found them to be extremely helpful.
No, the Best place for German callsigns is in my log with stroke P after then and a summit reference!
Typing a call in to Goggle will list anything out there including the list you mention, QRZ and Hamcall plus anybodies logbooks on line (logbook of the World ect), contest data, personal websites, eQSLs, SOTA spots and DX cluster entries. If you don’t get anything in Google the callsign must be either pirated or incorrect because even those not the callbooks are listed as details withheld.
As a test I typed a call of an amateur who died long before the Internet and Google appeared and got 87 hits.