I'm especially proud of the QSLs below. After years of working DX from the comfort of home, I finally realized that volunteering time & funds is really the only way we can make sure that future DXpeditions will continue to occur. So for the past several years I've made the conscious decision to increase my direct involvement whenever possible. I also take pride in trying to work DXpeditions as soon as they hit the airwaves (someone has to be first in the log!) and of course on as many new bands & modes as I can. I'm particularly fond of the cards below for the reasons stated with each.

Market Reef QSL from 1999. I had emailed Dennis before he left home and he was kind enough to pre-arrange a personal sked with me for one of the last DXCC entities I still needed. He later thanked me for my subsequent donation by listing me on the reverse side of the QSL.

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When P5/4L4FN first hit the airwaves in 2001, most people dismissed him as a pirate. But following the tried & true WFWL (work first worry later) mentality, I logged him as soon as I could fire up the amplifier. I'll never know exactly how close I was to the top of his log, but at least I know I was in the first batch of 246 QSOs from his very first week on the air when he made his initial online log upload as seen below. Ed gave me another fantastic memory a year later when he called me in a pileup when I was operating portable in American Samoa. How many other people will ever be lucky enough to be able to say someone in North Korea answered their CQ?!

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I love photography as an additional hobby and take great effort to try to produce the most memorable and unique photo QSLs possible. As much as I would like to say my skills are the primary resource, sometimes the scenery itself is so stunning that it requires very little effort on the part of the photographer to snap something nice. Such was the case on the lovely little island of Ofu in American Samoa (OC-077), without a doubt one of the most spectacular beach backdrops in the entire world. One of my favorite photographs of Ofu's signature south coast became the design for a QSL from our multinational DXpedition to Ofu in 2002. Seeing my photo credit on the back was nice, but not nearly as rewarding as working the world for two solid weeks in escapist paradise!

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Another remote American Samoa island trip, this time to Swains Island. I worked this one from the comfort of home but helped the team with logistics and transporting excess baggage & equipment free of charge on the airline I work for. I would have much rather joined them on that deserted island myself, but we can't all be so lucky...

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So far, my personal best in number of bands/modes worked on a single DXpedition is 16. Thank you, T32C! I take great pride in this statistic for two reasons: First, I am a relative latecomer to the wonders of CW and am still amazed that anyone can copy my sloppy straight key code, let alone on multiple bands. Second, I don't have an antenna for 80 meters or 160 meters, so contacts on those bands are few & far between. For me, working someone on 80 means a chunk of time trying to tune up with either my 10/15/20m yagi or R8 vertical, neither of which is designed to work on that band. Most of the time I get nowhere, but every now & then the right combination of lucky tuning and cooperative propagation results in a QSO. And I almost always have to forget about 160m. The tremendously high SWR I get on my existing antennas on top band leaves me with an effective output of only 5 - 10 watts when I try to transmit on 160. I'm lucky if I log one QSO on that band per year so I treasure each and every one of them.

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Leaving aside my rare 160m QSO with T32C, the 2007 N8S operation from Swains Island was the first time I achieved a clean sweep on every band and mode my working conditions would allow. 15 band/mode slots! I was able to duplicate this accomplishment later with the VP6DX activation of Ducie Island in early 2008, the ZL8X expedition to Kermadec Island in late 2010, and the K5P Palmyra Island DXpedition in 2016.

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Before N8S hit the airwaves, the closest I had come to a perfect score was in 2004 when I worked The T33C Banaba island team on 14 separate band/mode slots.

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In 2005 I matched my effort of 14 band/mode slots with the K7C expedition to Kure Atoll. I logged these guys on 80m on both SSB and CW, the first time I had ever accomplished such a feat. Who needs proper antennas anyway?!

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K1N was another successful 14 band/mode slot expedition for me. Who knows if I will even be alive the next time permission is granted for Navassa Island to be on the air again, so I threw out all the stops in 2015 to get in their log as many places as possible this time.

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T32S & T32SNW came to me for help in airline transportation between Hawaii and Kiribati. Not only did I get a mention of thanks in their QSL but also was the first station T32S logged from the island!

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Proud to be included with the many fine contributors for the YE6P expedition to one of the areas hit hardest by the devasting tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004.