My Most Interesting Radio Contacts
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CALL Freq. Mode Date Details
 N0LX   18.160   SSB   9Nov03   Jake was operating pedestrian mobile while hiking near Golden Colorado, using an FT-817 rig at 5W, with a 1/2 wavelength wire antenna suspended by a helium balloon as he walked.
 W8ERI  18.124  SSB   28Oct01  This is Jim Widlar from Breckenridge Colorado. This was such an interesting contact because Jim's Dad, Walt Widlar, designed (among many other things), the Bird 43 Wattmeter. And, Jim's brother Bob was a true pioneer in Integrated Circuit Development, with a large part of his career spent at National Semiconductor where he was responsible for scores of innovative, ground breaking linear/analog IC designs (like the LM10, LM12, etc.). I'm sure that JIM himself has done many ground-breaking things too!
 N9ZRT    18.160  SSB  03Mar01  OK, Dave, this is getting ridiculas! Here's Dave operating from a country gravel road near Ames, Iowa, with a 1/4 MILE LONG wire antenna, 17g aluminum fence wire, suspended on plastic electric fence sticks. Too bad, not enough wind for a kite antenna.
  N9ZRT   18.157  SSB   24Feb01  Here's David up to interesting things again! This time, operating as Pedestrian Mobile in Appleton WI, running 10W into a hand-held pole-mounted loop with an Icom 706MkIIG on a handtruck! Hmm, what's next David???
 N9ZRT  18.162 SSB   13Jan01  David was on a "PortaVenture", at the abandoned Quincy Copper Mine (www.quincymine.com) in Hancock MI. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this contact is that David was using a 10' PVC pipe filled with salt-water as his antenna. Now that's a first for me!
WB3DYE/MM  14.250  SSB  06Jan01  Bob was operating from the radio room of the cruise ship Fascination, enroute to San Juan.
 K0ND  18.150  SSB  30Sep00  Bill (K0UB) was operating a demonstration station in the local shopping mall in Dickinson, North Dakota.
N0ADQ 21.381 SSB 16Oct99 Charlie (WD0M) was the control op for a nice JOTA station. I spoke with 14 young scouts (Benjamin, Evan, Mario, Andrew, Kevin, Dan, Christopher, Eric, Justin, Micheal, Wilson, Sean, Ryan, and T-Boy). Lots of fun!
9A4QV/MM 18.142 SSB 5Sep99 Adam was aboard a 800' container ship in the North Atlantic Ocean, Coordinates of: 39'N,45'W.
 W5RRR 14.216  SSB 4Jul99 This is the Amateur Radio Station that is in the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Cool for that reason alone!
 N4ZRA  7.147  CW 23Jun99 This was Ed's first ever CW QSO! To be honest, it was my first in a long time, and I purposely searched for someone that was sending slowly!

 W9DK

 

 14.246

 

 SSB

 

 25Apr99

 

 Eric was operating from the crewman's mess aboard the WWII submarine USS Cobia AGSS-245 in celebration of the Submarine Memorial Radio Room Reactivation Weekend. There were several other "subs" on the air that weekend, but this is the only one I worked.

KB8YUR

QSL

14.204 SSB 21Mar99 This was a "Parade Mobile" station. John was operating from a float in a St. Patrick's Day parade in Bay City Michigan. It was 30F there, and you could here the marching band and crowd in the background. The float was from the KB8YUR Radio Club, and featured a large replica of an HT on board. Probably a first and last parade QSO!

KC4AAA

QSL

14.243 SSB 1Feb99 Les was operating from the Amundson-Scott South Pole Station in Antartica. Maybe this one is not so uncommon, but it was pretty "cool" for me!
N0GSG 28.355 SSB 23Jan99 Tom was in process of teaching a class on Amateur Radio in Kansas City, and providing a demonstration of HF SSB operation. I was lucky enough to be the "example".
ZL9CI 14.195 SSB 19Jan99 OK, most DX-chasers probably worked the Campbell Is. DX-pedition, but it was still exciting for me to get through running barefoot into a dipole.

WP3R

QSL

14.182 SSB 5Jan99 Angel was an interesting contact because he works at the world's largest radio telescope in Arricibo, Puerto Rico. He has some very interesting stories about the dish, and a really cool QSL card.
KC1WM 18.130 SSB 6Dec98 Kim was piloting a 767-200 aircraft enroute from Los Angeles to JFK in NYC. He was cruising at 37,000ft, somewhere over Kansas when we spoke. Lucky for him, and me, the airplane was equipped for overseas travel (with HF gear), so he was able to pass some time talking to us on 17m.

N4R

QSL

14.282 SSB 21Nov98 Rick was operating a special event station at the 10th annual NASCAR Days Festival in Randleman, NC (The home town of Richard Petty). Being a NASCAR fan, it was fun to make this contact, and to hear one of the Petty race cars go by on its way to the display area.

WG1H/m

QSL

3.686 CW 2Nov98 Al was operating CW while driving his 18 wheeler home from NJ to New England. He had a key strapped to his thigh, and was copying everything from my fumble-fist in his head.

VO1KC

QSL

21.130 CW 7Oct98 Nothing was terribly interesting about this contact with Derek in Newfoundland, except that he was my first CW contact ever. He had a lot of patience with me and my nervous fist. This contact was made while I was still KC2BOG.

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