Well, I got my 100th DX entity.

Yesterday I sniped my last several countries and entities I needed to say I've got 100 of them under my belt.

The term '100 countries' is somewhat of a misnomer. It is really 100 DX entities as some of theplaces in my log are not really countries and I can think of three of them that are basically uninhabited islands that someone hauled radio gear ashore on and set up.

I guess an example of this might be Puerto Rico. The United States owns it but for radio purposes it is a seperate entity. France owns Corsica, Italy owns Sardania and Sicily yet these are seperate entities from the mother country.

My favorite QSO was Portugal proper because I kind of upset a pretty good apple cart when I QSO'd.

There was a pretty hefty pile up on this guy and there must have been thirty or more hams trying to get through to this guy. I was thinking of passing on him but I saw he was putting out a pretty good signal to me and figured that I had a chance to bust through the pileup. I threw my callsign into the fray and the third time I did I was rewarded by being picked out of the rabble.

There was something in the man's voice that was smooth and suave. He reminded me of Dick Clark back when he was in his prime, no yet. It was just a little too confident and smooth for my tastes and I realized that in front of me was a real apple cart.

Now we are not talking about some run of the mill Italian neighborhood apple cart run by a little guy named Luigi, we're talking like an apple cart out of a Norman Rockwell painting with every apple perfectly shaped and highlt polished and stacked perfectly.

There are times a man just has to do what he has to do.

He pulled my callsign out of the pile and said, "You are a 5x9 plus into Portugal,"

"What? Portugal?!!?"" I shot back. "You gotta be kidding me!! On this rig? This is my nine year old grandson's science fair project! I was trying to get his friend three doors down the street on it to tell him to come home for dinner and I got PORTUGAL on it? Boy, is he going to be surprised when I tell him."

"Ah...err..ah...Yes, I am in Portugal and you are a 5x9." he replied.

"Hey, that's neat! Well, I'll see you later. I gotta go get Jimmy for dinner. We're having chicken the way he likes it and he sure wouldn't want to miss it. I gotta go get him. Maybe Jimmy can talk to you later. Goodbye."

He managed to recover a bit.

"Hope you enjoy dinner. Nice talking to you. I'll send your grandson a QSL card through you."

The pile-up was silent for a good ten seconds before it resumed.

Sometimes you have to keep them guessing.


my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/