is that I get to leave all of the bullshit behind and communicate with people from all around the world and all that matters is ham radio.
I just got through to Algeria tonight and they are having a 50th anniversary special event on the air and I suppose that when I can get around to mailing the request for a QSL card I will likely get one from them and have yet another entity bagged.
I tried to bust through to Kuwait the other night but got mashed down in the pile up which is fine. I'll punch through to him the next time.
Right now the project is to get 100 countries confirmed on paper. Sometimes this takes time. My QSL card from India took several months. Italy was no prize, either as the mail system there is supposidly a mess.
The Contessa (she sounded like one) I QSO'd just outside of Rome told me that it took 45 days to receive the card I mailed the following morning. She sent me a wonderful letter and several postcards along with her QSL card.
I call her the Countessa because she sounded like one. Who knows? Maybe she was a 350 pound woman wearing a burlap grain sack but I sort of doubt it. She sounded too polished. Betcha she looks like Sophia Loren.
My Worked All States project I had a few problems with because a few of the hams were lazy on returning QSL requests. It finally came together and I was awarded a certificate dated 2 July 2012 by the ARRL for this minor doing.
I would have had the certificate months earlier but it took time for the QSL cards to trickle in. I noticed as I get a little testy that the guys that were slow were generally big shots. The working guys for the most part QSL'd fast.
I sent a request to Tonga after a morning contact that came as a surprise. I doubt I'll get an answer as the guy sounded like he was in a mud hut babbling away on a radio that belonged to the missionary he had just eaten for lunch. He sounded like he was bombed on some kind of coconut hooch.
I envisioned a spear stuck in the ground next to a fire with the missionary's slowly shrinking head hanging from the spear and a pile of bones next to the fire.
Still, I have over 100 DX contacts and although I don't have all the cards I will still keep adding to the pile and working DX stations until I have 100 cards to show the card checker and then send my couple bucks to the ARRL for my certificate.
I started the post by saying I get to leave all the crap behind me and I do because there are not a whole lot of hams out there that have a whole lot to say about religion and politics on the air.
Granted on 80 meters there are a couple of political nets that are on the air but they generally keep to themselves and keep it in the family so to speak. They'll generally QSL anyone that wants them to and in the past couple years as a ham I have heard one big outrage.
That was when someone that didn't share the same political views as the net tried to jam them. He didn't seem to last long because I suppose that someone either reported him to the FCC or maybe took direct action. A straight pin through coax does the trick nicely.
I go on the air to get away from the religion and politics that seem to be everywhere and it is a joy to chat with someone on a friendly basis even though he may be sitting in the capitol city of someplace that is on Uncle Sam's list of bad boys. I had a nice contact with Moscow a while back and it was pretty neat.
About thirty years ago I was training to fight the Russians and it's pretty neat that I can get on the air with them now and there is only a common interest in radio communications to share with them. Religion and politics be damned.
I'm thinking of writing the CO of the small Japanese Maritime self-defense force on Iwo To which everyone knows as Iwo Jima. There is a garrison there of 400 Japanese servicemen and I'd just bet you that a couple of them are hams.
I'd sure like a QSL card from Iwo To. I had a relative killed there during the fighting and I suppose it would be a neat thing to have a card from there.
While I am out at sea the QSL cards come trickling in and when I get to my mail it is often in the middle of the night. I put the bills and other headaches aside and go straight for the incoming QSL cards. I can deal with the rest of the mail in the morning.
Anyway that's my post for the day.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html
I read your statement about training to fight the Russians. Growing up the Russians were the bad guy. Even when my grandfather (a WWII veteran himself) bought me a WWII model set and all the shop had were eastern Europe armies, he'd get me the Germans instead of the Soviets.
ReplyDeleteI was in High School when the wall fell. Suddenly, all those that were our enemies were our friends. I dated a young woman who had gotten out of North Korea with her family. I work with a guy who we joke is "Russian" but he actually explained that he didn't immigrate from Russia because he was in the wrong place when the Soviet Union collapsed. I met a guy who claimed that he was an infant when his family was on one of the last evacuations from Vietnam, but was stuck in INS Hell due to the fact that he was a little shit and got a felony at 18. (USA tried to kick him out, but Vietnam won't take them back, thus he stayed incarcerated.) I was there when the court announced that indefinite detainment of an Immigration Detainee due to the fact that no country would accept them was unconstitutional.
The world is changing. It has always been changing and it always will change. And I just hope that I'll recognize it when it happens.
I wish I could work more DX. I don't have the antenna for it. Living in an HOA with a windom on the roof. I might get around to building a vertical for 20m and up this summer. So far with the way it's oriented, on a good evening I can get most of the western hemisphere on phone. I have to use digital modes to cross the ponds either way. Best I've done with PSK is Tasmania to the west and the Ukraine to the east. -- KK5WTF
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