First Alaskan Contact

I've been involved with HF for about 5 years this coming February when I upgraded to General. This is the card of my first contact with a station in Alaska. For some reason, it had been quite elusive over the past couple of years to pick up an Alaskan contact as well as one from Idaho. Anyway, just had to note that. Now I'm looking for Yukon Territory, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut in Canada. Maybe after that I'll work on getting Antarctica!!

The Joy of DX

Something about me is that I love working DX on my amateur radio station. It doesn't matter the numbers that I pile up for a contest. It's just the pure thrill of working a far off station of anywhere from 2000 to 12000 miles away. Not that I don't like to hear from other stations in my city, state or region but something about being able to turn on the radio, watch the tubes glow or the display flicker on and to work a station in South America, Alaska, Russia, SE Asia, or pretty much anywhere else. Especially the first few times you work those stations. My first contact was to Cuba when I upgraded and to this day that still impresses me that we can use amateur radio to contact those in Cuba even with the strict society they have.

What's even more fun is to work the rare DX that occasionally pops up just a couple of times a year or in some cases every couple of years or more. I've been an active shortwave and ham listener for about 20 years now and even when I was in my teens I enjoyed listening to faraway DX stations on shortwave and still do to some extent even though the news is generally much easier to get via the Internet while using a small but powerful computer. However, there is such a pull for one to work DX especially myself. I find it gratifying to even using under 100 watts which I do most of the time to work DX stations. Very rarely do I ever power up an amplifier unless conditions have been very bad or nonexistent.

I do like the occasional conversation or net on HF but I think that the DX bug caught me a few years ago during contests hearing a pileup of who knows, 100s of stations and to have your call pulled out of that DX pileup is amazing. Considering that some of those men and women are using high powered stations, beam antennas, and amplifiers, plus having the skill and equipment knowledge to work those stations. At this point in my amateur career I enjoy building small but effective antennas that can be used to get quality results. Using a beam with 1000 watts would be fun too but I find it a great challenge to work these stations with 50 to 100 watts PEP and talk to stations thousands of miles away. Not to mention get good signal reports for your efforts. Maybe not FM quality but readable at their location and good audio reports. Anyway, just had that on my mind so had to put that out there. 73s, W9SUN

More QSL Cards from 2010 and 2011

Hey there! I haven't posted much here as of late with being quite busy but here are some new QSL cards for the last couple of years. Some of them might overlap with older posts so I'll have to weed them out as I go if I ever find time to spend on the blog. I try to get in here every month or so but sometimes it just slips my mind. Anyway, enjoy the cards and I should have some more soon after working contests on 3 occasions this last month and a half.