Jeff and everyone,
Randy is doing well. I emailed him recently while researching the feature on Rob, KD4ZGW, that appears in the new issue of the AMSAT Journal, which has already hit a few mailboxes. Randy is the first to have earned the Central States VHF Society's Reverse VUCC Award on the satellites. Only one other operator - Allen, N5AFV - also has the award on the satellites. Congratulations to both of them. Those who know Randy may be interested in this update he provided, when I asked if he ever gets on the satellites these days:
I do listen on my way to work and did get back on for a few days last month. I am going to help a school in Salt Lake county with their ARISS contact which has not been given a date yet. When they get a date I will on the satellites a lot more to get back in practice. They last few years I have been active doing EME on 2 meters and I have 107 grids confirmed via the moon.
You can check out http://emeshack.com/ for my latest status.
It was fun to give out all of those grid squares. Feel free to use the map at
http://www.xmission.com/~rkohlwey/images/fromgrid.gif
The map is current of August 3, 2006. The dots are the locations I have worked a satellite from. The dots that are not in a shaded area I was not able to complete a contact. The grids with the grid square displayed are the ones that I did not send out a QSL card for. No one requested one.
Part of my motivation for giving out so many grids was to get help on working all of the grids in the 48 Continental states. I completed that on August 11, 2001. The blue dots on the following map are confirmed QSOs on satellite.
http://www.uglyfrog.com/n7sfi/images/usagrid.gif
I completed a reverse WAS on September 12, 2008 but do not have QSL cards for all the states.
Hope this helps,
Randy - WI7P
Moon VUCC! How cool is that?!
73 to all,
Tim - N3TL
-------------- Original message from "Jeff KB2M" kb2m@comcast.net: --------------
Randy's call is now wi7p. I haven't heard Randy on the bird's since 2006, I hope he is doing ok. The thing I remember most about Randy is that he completed (to the my best of my knowledge) WAS in reverse. Another words he worked someone on a satellite FROM every state! I thought that was quite an accomplishment. He would travel somewhere for work and make sat contacts from as many states as he could drive too while he was in that general area. I remember him discussing this activity while we were having dinner at the AMSAT symposium banquet in 2000 in Maine. There was another person involved in doing this also, but I now forget who it was.
73 Jeff kb2m
-----Original Message----- From: amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of Gary "Joe" Mayfield Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 11:58 PM To: 'George Henry'; 'amsat bb' Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Rare grid squares?
DXers produce list of desired countries. Six meter operators have compiled such a list of grid squares, I suspect our list would be similar. If you have not read about the Fred Fish (w5ff) award, it is interesting. I think Randy, n7sfi is probably our Fred Fish as I don't know of anyone else who has all of the grids touched by the lower 48 states.
I would like to see two lists; one for Grids and one for States. Satellite operations should make for an easy WAS, but I know it took me way longer than I thought it should have.
A few years ago to spark interest QRP-L had a one state per weekend deal for QRP ops. Maybe we should do a one state a weekend for satellite ops?
Anyway... I would be willing to help with such a project. I think a good starting point might be a web site where folks could report what they have or have not worked. It might even be enough to get me to update my grid list :-)
73, Joe kk0sd
-----Original Message----- From: amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of George Henry Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 10:32 PM To: amsat bb Subject: [amsat-bb] Rare grid squares?
What are considered "rare" grid squares for satellite ops?
Maybe more of us could activate them, if we only knew where they were.....
George, KA3HSW
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