Ham Radio has the UltraDX Web Site

Ultra DX is a web site for ham radio that offers a wide range of services to the DXer or Contester. Set up in 2008 (I think), the site is still evolving.Here is a review of the major components of the site.

UltraDX Community

UltraDX, like most sites, wants to build a community around the site for traffic and common interests. The Community tab offers articles submitted by users of the site, blogs (although the last entry was from 2008), call sign search, chat rooms, classifieds, forums, links, news, opinion polls...and more.The fun part of this is the range of services for the community offered. The big disadvantage is that there is a lack of focus for a community (a problem with many sites, including this one - what do you want the site to be when it grows up?).

UltraDX DX Info

The DX Info tab offers a link to the DX Cluster, but no web access to spots. Plus, the DX Rentals gives you a good selection of DX locations where the stations are set up for you ready to go. There is a listing of DXpeditions with links from NG3K, including the source for the information.Finally, this tab offers a DX Prefix and Zone List that is current as of February, 2008. This is a listing of countries, continents, ITU and CQ zones for each DX entity, not a prefix to country list.

UltraDX Contesting

The Contesting tab offers a contesting calendar done in a traditional monthly view. The contest calendar "has a unique feature that permits amateurs to export events as a Desktop Event to programs such as Outlook or Outlok Express. This sets a reminder on your local computer so you won't forget a contest."There is also a feed from the RadioSport.net site by Jamie Dupree, NS3T, which I have noted here on this site.The Contest Rentals option that matches the DX rentals area from the previous tab.

UltraDX Services tab

The site offers to host your ham radio blog for free and, if a business site, for a significant discount to the published hosting plans from a specific company.As well, a Voice over IP service will be offered to ham radio operators in the September, 2009, time frame. I'll pass on commentary on this one until the service is available.Finally, e-mail services are offered to members using a yourcall @ ultradx.com format.

Conclusions

UltraDX offers some good services for the ham community. As with most ham sites, there is a lot under construction as we do this work in our "spare" time.