1981

Another of my hobbies is ham radio. I was first licensed as WA0ECM in Iowa in 1962. This was back in the days of the big AM rigs. Sadly, I gave that call up for WA9WGJ years later and went to SSB. Over the last few years I haven't been very active, but in the late 70's and early 80's I was really into it.

County Hunting

I talked to someone in each county in the US (all 3074 of them at the time) and received my Worked All Counties award (#280) in 1980. This took about 3 years and met some GREAT people. See County Hunter Dot Com.

One day we heard a knock at the door and it was a couple from Alaska, Bob and Dot (KL7IAA/WA7ZXJ) that we had talked to many times. They were down in the 48 roaming around the states. They wound up using our place as a base for their 'motor home' and stayed the best part of the summer as they traveled a few days and then returned. They had great stories about how they would gold mine in Alaska for a few years, go to Vegas and make a little more money, and then tour the US for a couple years (until the money ran out.) They would then return to Alaska and their gold mine. They were really nice people.

During this time we also hosted parties for county hunters from England and Portugal.

DXing

I've talked to people in over 300 countries in the world. Here are three interesting? stories:

S t. Irenes: One of the local churches is only a block away. Sunday mornings the radio conditions were great for talking around the world so I'd get on and yak away. Well, the sound system at the church was in a modest state of disrepair and periodically my transmissions would be received on their church PA system. I always ran single-side band which, when picked up on a PA system, is almost unintelligible. Kind of sounds like Donald Duck! I don't know what they thought - perhaps they thought they were being spoke to in tongues - or maybe they didn't even notice the difference - who knows!

O n the way into work in the mornings, band conditions were phenomenal. From my mobile in the car, I would sit and talk to a ham in Russia and another in Australia in a three-way conversation for about 20 minutes each morning. Even though this was during the 'cold war' times, hams between Russia and the US communicated often.

M ore than once, I would run phone patches (where people talk on the radio and then you hook it into the phone to make a local connection) from people in expeditions to the South Pole to their friends, spouses, etc. in this area.

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Originally created 03/01/95. Added to this site 04/26/99. Last Modified: