A Ham Radio New Year

Two ham radio events happened to me over New Year’s Day. I set a new record for distance, and I won a certificate in a contest without trying.

While listening for the foxes in the QRP Fox Hunt, I heard K5N, a CWOPS 10th anniversary special event station in Texas. I figured why not try to knock out a quick contact, and when the station returned from a break I succeeded. I had to repeat my call a few times, but we exchanged signal reports and logged the contact. QRZ shows the station as 1047 miles away. Not bad for 5 watts into an Alpha Loop sitting on my window sill!

I checked into the HARC weekly net, and Saul, W3WHK, congratulated me for winning a certificate in the Pennsylvania QSO Party for QRP operation in Philadelphia county. I only made one contact, but the power multiplier gave me a grand total of eight points. I wanted to go through the motions of entering a contest - making and logging a QSO, and uploading the log for submission, and I ended up getting a certificate. I’ve heard hams say to submit your log even if you make one or two contacts, because you may still win an award, and this happened to me. It made my night!