ARRL DX Phone Contest
The ARRL DX Phone Contest has been in full swing all weekend. Translation: The American Radio Relay League Long Distance (i.e., foreign country) voice contest has been running this weekend. The ARRL is the national organization of radio amateurs for the US, although there are many Canadian members, including myself, as well. They sponsor a number of different radio contests throughout the year in order to encourage good operator skills and fun in the hobby.
I am not a committed contester by any means, but it sure can be fun to see how you stack up against the guys with the big beam antennas and kilowatt amplifiers - and there are a lot of those guys! I am amazed that with my paltry 100 watts and random wire antenna, I have done pretty well! I have worked 32 different countries in the last day and a half ranging from Brazil to the Ukraine!
I was pretty excited yesterday when I did the bulk of my contesting; the adrenaline was going like crazy. I was impressed with the little FT-857D’s ability to get through the pile-ups and with the DSP (digital signal processing) filtering that allowed me to make sense of the distance stations through all the contest activity. Having the automatic tuner inline to auto-adjust the impedance shown by the antenna to the radio is a godsend! Pretty exciting stuff!
I just got a Facetime call from Bob K on my iPhone. He and David are in Florida for a much needed break from winter. And they are looking for a place to buy perhaps. It looked nice. Coincidentally, I just had a text chat with Robbie from work about us heading south at some point soon. We both need and deserve a break - him especially after all the work he has been doing. And me, just ‘cause I’m special!
I look forward to a nice road trip with my new ham radio installed. It might drive Robbie crazy though. We’ll have to work that out, I guess!
I am not a committed contester by any means, but it sure can be fun to see how you stack up against the guys with the big beam antennas and kilowatt amplifiers - and there are a lot of those guys! I am amazed that with my paltry 100 watts and random wire antenna, I have done pretty well! I have worked 32 different countries in the last day and a half ranging from Brazil to the Ukraine!
I was pretty excited yesterday when I did the bulk of my contesting; the adrenaline was going like crazy. I was impressed with the little FT-857D’s ability to get through the pile-ups and with the DSP (digital signal processing) filtering that allowed me to make sense of the distance stations through all the contest activity. Having the automatic tuner inline to auto-adjust the impedance shown by the antenna to the radio is a godsend! Pretty exciting stuff!
I just got a Facetime call from Bob K on my iPhone. He and David are in Florida for a much needed break from winter. And they are looking for a place to buy perhaps. It looked nice. Coincidentally, I just had a text chat with Robbie from work about us heading south at some point soon. We both need and deserve a break - him especially after all the work he has been doing. And me, just ‘cause I’m special!
I look forward to a nice road trip with my new ham radio installed. It might drive Robbie crazy though. We’ll have to work that out, I guess!