Consolation Prize
Apr. 13th, 2012 09:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
banjoplayinnerdSo as I said in the previous post I missed out on South Africa. I got a consolation prize, though. This afternoon in rapid succession I got a contact into Hawaii, plus another one into Japan.
Under the somewhat arcane rules governing ham radio awards, Hawaii counts as both a state (for the Worked All States award) and as a country (for the DX Century Club, where you try to get contacts with hams in 100 different "countries.") Same with Alaska. This means that since March I've worked something like ten states and three countries. You'd think Canada and Alaska would be easy contacts, but I haven't managed to get them yet.
A quick word about countries: somewhere there's a definition of what constitutes a country for award purposes, but it's been a very long time since I've read it. The list includes over 300 entities, including such "countries" as the Isle of Man, Scotland, Wales, the Galapagos Islands, Asiatic Russia (as opposed to European Russia), St. Pierre et Miquelon, the naval base at Guantanamo Bay and the headquarters of the International Telecommunications Union in Geneva - as opposed to the United Nations headquarters in New York.
I earned my Worked All States (WAS) award the last time I was on the air for an extended period of time and got something like 45 countries toward DXCC. I want to try to get WAS again, and to get DXCC this time. Both are doable, but can be tricky. With DXCC, once you get past the countries with large, active ham populations - maybe 50 of them - you have to start digging for the rest.
Stateside, the tough part is working the states that have low numbers of hams. Wyoming comes to mind, as do both North and South Dakota. I remember reading recently that there are about 1500 hams in North Dakota, of which maybe 10% are active on the shortwave bands. So, now that this post is over I'm off to participate in something called the Montana QSO Party, where hams from Montana are encouraged to get on the air so the rest of us can contact them. When I earned my WAS, I was living in Montana, and for more than one ham I was their last state for WAS.
And one final note: Guess which states have the highest numbers of radio hams? California has the most, followed by Texas, Florida, and . . . for reasons unknown to me . . . Washington. Yeah, not too many people need me as their fiftieth state for WAS.
Under the somewhat arcane rules governing ham radio awards, Hawaii counts as both a state (for the Worked All States award) and as a country (for the DX Century Club, where you try to get contacts with hams in 100 different "countries.") Same with Alaska. This means that since March I've worked something like ten states and three countries. You'd think Canada and Alaska would be easy contacts, but I haven't managed to get them yet.
A quick word about countries: somewhere there's a definition of what constitutes a country for award purposes, but it's been a very long time since I've read it. The list includes over 300 entities, including such "countries" as the Isle of Man, Scotland, Wales, the Galapagos Islands, Asiatic Russia (as opposed to European Russia), St. Pierre et Miquelon, the naval base at Guantanamo Bay and the headquarters of the International Telecommunications Union in Geneva - as opposed to the United Nations headquarters in New York.
I earned my Worked All States (WAS) award the last time I was on the air for an extended period of time and got something like 45 countries toward DXCC. I want to try to get WAS again, and to get DXCC this time. Both are doable, but can be tricky. With DXCC, once you get past the countries with large, active ham populations - maybe 50 of them - you have to start digging for the rest.
Stateside, the tough part is working the states that have low numbers of hams. Wyoming comes to mind, as do both North and South Dakota. I remember reading recently that there are about 1500 hams in North Dakota, of which maybe 10% are active on the shortwave bands. So, now that this post is over I'm off to participate in something called the Montana QSO Party, where hams from Montana are encouraged to get on the air so the rest of us can contact them. When I earned my WAS, I was living in Montana, and for more than one ham I was their last state for WAS.
And one final note: Guess which states have the highest numbers of radio hams? California has the most, followed by Texas, Florida, and . . . for reasons unknown to me . . . Washington. Yeah, not too many people need me as their fiftieth state for WAS.
