This past weekend on the birds was second to none that I've experienced in the past two years. We had grid dxpeditions on the east and west coast, two hamfest demonstrations, the Boy Scout Jamboree stations and an Alaska Statehood special event station operating.
Patrick, WD9EWK, was at the Old Pueblo Radio Club Hamfest in Tucson and made a big detour to continue down I-10 to the Arizona/New Mexico state line where he operated from in the afternoon. Doug, KD8CAO, was at the Holland Michigan Lakeshore Super Swap Hamfest and put on a demonstration there.
Mark WA8SME operated on one AO-27 pass from the DN00/DN01 grid boundary, two very rare Nevada grids. John W6ZKH operated from DM07 but had some trouble with his equipment on this particular pass. He said he will go back some day. Mark also said he might be able to operate from DM07 in the near future.
Then we had the Boy Scouts Jamboree on the Air with quite a few different stations operating on all of the FM birds including K2BSA/5, W0S, K5B etc.
The most prominent grid dxpedition this weekend was by Richard, N2SPI. He had originally planned to operate from FN53, FN56, FN57, FN66 and FN67 but he found a way to also operate from FN55 and FN65 as well. He worked on the FM birds as well as VO-52. This operation began Saturday morning and finished up Sunday afternoon, about 30 hours from the first qso until the last on AO-27 at 1853z. Richard operated at least one pass in each of seven grids and never operated on a grid boundary. This was quite a trip! Richard returned back to Massachusetts late Sunday night.
The weekend rounded out with an announcement to look for KL5O, an Alaska Special Event Station, on the birds. The AO-7 pass Sunday evening at 0043Z had at least 14 different stations operating including WV9E, KE5GFJ, WA4NVM, AA4FL, AA5PK, K6CDW, KE2CKO, K0OU, K3SZH, AJ9K, KD8CAO, W7LRD, K8YSE and KL5O! KL5O was down around 937 late in the pass. So if you think that there is no one on AO-7, this should put that thought to rest. Many of them were talking about KL5O. A special event does draw people to the birds just like it does on the HF bands. Of course working Alaska is a special treat under any situation. I believe KL7XJ was the operator.
Activity is on the rise on the SSB birds in general. Many that have been active on the FM birds are getting equipment set up for the SSB/CW birds. It's nice to be able to have a qso that involves more than a callsign and grid exchange. We hope to have FO-29 back soon but VO-52 and AO-7 are there for us every day.
A big thanks to all of the grid dxpeditioners who spent a lot of time and money operating from places away from their homes. They have given us many new grids. I hope this encourages others to try their hand at operating from other grids. It's a lot of work but you will have a lot of fun and satisfaction doing it.
73, John K8YSE
John Papay [email protected]