Simon, IZ7ATN (ZD9ATN), is not telling the truth nor is he telling the whole story. So I will give you my understanding of what happened and you can decide for yourself. First off Simon is one of these Freebanders (CBers). Now I dont know about you but I have no time for this type of activity which is destroying Amateur Radio. And Simon knows how I feel about this kind of secretive activity. Simon is ticked off at me from the TX0AT and TI9M DXpeditions when I stood up and alerted people of these activities. In fact Simon was caught red handed doing this after being told by other TI9M team members not to do it. They then basically told him to get on the ship and you will no longer operate. Check your QSL card and notice the dates next to the call IZ7ATN. He didnt go back home early! So now Simon goes to Tristan da Cunha and once again operates on both the Amateur bands and this clandestine Freeband garbage. When I found out he was doing this I sent emails to two people asking if this Freeband activity was legal or not. One was ZD9BV, Andy, and the other was a G station who never responded back. In fact Andy was hosting Simon and told me at first that he was unaware of what Simon was doing. Also you need to know that Simon posted notes on various Freeband sites saying things like keep quiet about this operation and QSL route will be given upon operators return home. Now these were not the exact words but one could quickly realize Simon did not want others to know about his Freeband activity. In my emails I did not threaten Andy or the G station. I just asked questions about the legality of Freeband on ZD9. I did tell Andy about Simons past illegal activities. Andy never answered the questions about the legality on ZD9. By the way Andy does work for the local ZD9 government. I did not know that until yesterday. Some of you are probably saying these freebanders are harmless. Guys they are operating even in the ham bands. And they go on DXpeditions just like hams, only they dont always seek permission to operate from said islands, much less have a license to do so. Government officials wont care if they are hams or freebanders once they catch them illegally going on some of these islands. So the next time someone who is a licensed Amateur Radio operator wants to go to one of these islands they may be told no because of past illegal Freeband activities. So the bottom line is Simon has a long standing beef with W3UR and this is just payback. I have not and will not ever try to tear down a legitimate Amateur Radio DXpedition. I promote both Amateur Radio and DXing. PS here is a copy of an email I received from Andy this morning. Hope all is ok with you and yes I'm a Government official as i do work for the Tristan government as there communications officer at the coast radio station, and no you did not send me any threatening ee-mails i will take a look at the qrz .com. have a nice day been very busy this side with ship's and yacht's. Best Regards Andy 73 Bernie, W3UR Bernie McClenny, W3UR
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