Monthly Archives: February 2013

Ham Radio in Sports Illustrated

In the latest ARRL Contest Update there was a photo taken by N0AX (Ward) of K1DG (Doug) and K3LR (Tim) with a copy of a 1958 Sports Illustrated magazine.  Inside that Sports Illustrated issue is an article titled “The Battle Of The Hams“.

Some of my favorite snippets from the article are:

“a hobby—amateur radio—that is distinguished by one of the most grueling international competitions in all sport”

“It takes about six months before logs, sent from the six continents, can be tabulated and checked.”  – Some results still take that long.

“Depending on just how serious he is on the subject, the DX contest man will not only kill himself in a contest, but he will spend the better part of a year getting ready for the exquisite torture of 48 hours of almost continuous operating.”

I don’t know if this story is true, but you will chuckle… “Zone 23 is mostly tundra and Tibet, and hams there are as rare as centerfielders. Robert Ford, an R.A.F. radio operator, put Zone 23 on the map, operating from a monastery for a few months eight years ago. Then he was captured by the Communists and became famous as a man who survived five years of attempted brainwashing and Red torture. When he was released in Hong Kong three years ago, the first Westerner to greet him was a British colonel. The officer was a ham first and an Englishman second. He threw his arms around Ford and cried, “Thank God you’re alive, Bob. I’ve been sweating out your QSL card for six and a half years.”

You can read and print the entire 1958 Sports Illustrated article. The article is all still relevant today, 55 years later.

73,
K2DSL

Closer to getting back on the air

In January we were able to get our gutters repaired on the house and garage after they were damaged when Superstorm Sandy came through the end of October and a large tree came down taking out my G5RV and home made fan dipole. After the new gutters were installed I was travelling and then we’ve had cold and snowy weather (Nemo dumped 12″ of snow). I need to shoot up some new ropes with the help of some local club members and then we can pull up a spare G5RV I have. I also have been offered another fan dipole a local ham made so I might put up some extra rope even if I don’t have anything to attach them to yet.

I missed out on some contests in January and February as well as some DX so hopefully I can get something back in the air again soon. I have been following RTTY and Contesting reflectors as well as the 3830 reports and see how well folks are doing and what others are reporting for conditions.

73,
K2DSL