#10K

Recently, a number of amateur (ham) radio operators traveled to Canadian territory—Sable Island—and set up shop for a couple weeks. Their goal was to open up this rare entity for the rest of us hams around the world.

In the ham world, these sorts of well-funded, hyper-organized efforts are called DXpeditions and are quite popular. With the east coast of Canada being just a short-hop, radio-wise, I was fortunate to make contact with this station a few times.

The other day, the electronic confirmation of my contacts showed up. I was elated, of course, because this sort of documentation makes it official. I send the contact details up to the cloud; they also send the details, the system makes a match and the contact (or QSO) is confirmed for both parties. 

Pretty cool, eh?

The most popular system for doing this, and the one I use, is called "Logbook of the World" (LoTW). LoTW is a product of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL).

Last week, I told you that I got back on the air in 2021 after a long break. Over the course of nearly five years, I have uploaded the details of nearly 17,000 QSOs to LoTW. And just this week, I received my 10,00th confirmation (or QSL). #10K!

In the old days, a QSL was achieved by the exchange of two post cards. In the mid 70s. you can imagine teenage Jeffie and his excitement when a new card showed up in the day's mail. I still have all the cards I collected back then as well as the ones sent to my dad.

These days, there seems to be mixed opinions about sending the card. Some hams—myself included—still enjoy sending and receiving cards. In fact, I just dropped a card in the mail to a station in MS. I talked to the person (or "worked" them, in ham radio lingo) over the weekend.

Other folks cite a number of reasons for NOT engaging in the practice, ranging from postage costs to just not wanting to bother. Some operators say they already have boxes and boxes of cards and don't need more. 

No judgement either way. I still like to tap into my 13-year-old psyche and enjoy the thrill of adding a new card to my collection.

None of this to say that I don't equally enjoy a new LoTW e-confirmation.  I just got one last night, for instance, from Utah. That's pretty cool, too.

Over five years, that is 10,000x of "pretty cool." It's just one aspect of many that I love about this hobby. And over the course of the weeks and months ahead, I'll enjoy telling you about many of them - to my ham and non-ham friends alike!

JG