CQ WPX 2013

Well it is trying to be spring and in short order it will be here, for me the beginning of spring starts with my annual trip to Oregon to operate the CQ WPX contest from the QTH of K7BUY. What this means is that I will most likely have to drive for five hours one way and at least some part of it will be in a spring snow storm....it just never fails.

I guess my point is that not only is it a great radio weekend but even a greater time spent with an old friend away from the hubbub of the city. Try to make a plan in the next year to go see an old friend and do something you both love to do, no matter what it is it is good for us...

I hope to hear you on in the WPX contest it is a good one and a good way to say goodbye to the winter radio season as you know we all spend way less time in the shack starting about this time of the year. I will have a report on our weekend when I return....Get on the radio have some fun and say goodbye to winter....Photo taken last March of the lovely spring WX !

Clipperton Isl.

When I was a kid in rural Idaho I sat on the floor and turned the dial on an RCA floor model radio and was amazed at the things I would hear, my mind would conger up visions of far away places in exotic settings....and I would wonder what is it like there.

Radio was magic then and still is if you think about it....just magic. Over the past 40 some years of being a Ham I have had the wonderful experience of talking to far away places and I still have the same visions as I did as a kid but I sent my signal back to them....I know we all know how this works but it is still magic !

When I served in the NAVY I was stationed in the Pacific and I got to set foot on some very cool tropical places....I wanted to see them all but not to be...I know what a tropical breeze feels like and the sand beneath my feet and I love all things tropical and South Pacific....

Well I will have to say maybe all things Pacific, once again a group of very adventurous Hams have made the trip to Clipperton Isl. to hand out contacts to the rest of the world...Clipperton was number 19 on the most wanted country list....I had worked Clipperton in 92 but followed the 2013 group very close the web is so great for such things.....So when I worked them on 80m and 160m on CW I flashed back to those days setting on the floor looking at that old RCA....

I will always get excited when working a small Atoll in the Pacific, I am not sure what it is but it feels so good for a few moments to be in touch with a remote island with a rich history of explores, pirates and crazy ham operateors putting it on the line to give me the thrill of working one of the most inhospitable and remote places on earth....Thanks to the TX5K team for a job well done, you thrilled me twice last week.

If you do not chase DX then start, it is an adventure from the comfort of your shack....get on the air have fun and dream of far away places......73

             A couple of the tents on Clipperton Isl. thanks again to the TX5K group, well done !