The Day on Radio - 19 September 2009

I turned on the HF radio for (according to the log) the first time in 2 weeks this morning. I decided to play some radio before watching some football this afternoon and going to work this evening. I didn't get any DX today, but I did have fun chasing the Blue Ridge Bonanza special event stations, working a couple of South Carolina QSO Party stations, and working an Elmer Club in Virginia. Most all of this morning's contacts were on 40 Meters.

The first station I came across this morning was W4CA, one of the Blue Ridge Bonanza stations. The Blue Ridge Bonanza is a group of 13 special event stations along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia and North Carolina. This first W4CA that I worked was at mile marker 0 on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Throughout the morning I worked 5 more W4CA stations at mile marker 84 - Peaks of Otter, mile marker 121 - Mill Mountain, mile marker 45.6 - Buena Vista, mile marker 189 - Groundhog Mountain, and milemarker 213 - the Blue Ridge Music Center. For the seventh of the 13 stations, I worked W4NC at mile marker 244.

In between the Blue Ridge Bonanza stations, I worked two stations in the South Carolina QSO Party on 80 Meters: KF4UOR in Calhoun County, SC and W4QNW just across the river in Beaufort County, SC.

This being a day of Virginia stations, I continued the run of Virginia stations by working W4ZA, the Richmond Amateur Radio Club. The Richmond ARC was celebrating the 80th birthday of their club!

The last contact of the morning was with the Memorial Amateur Radio Club. This is an intersting organization. They are an elmering club that works with students in the WFOS broadcast radio class at the Chesapeake Center for Science and Technology. The school has a broadcast FM station on 88.7 MHz (I'll have to start listening for them during E-Skip and Tropo ducting). They not only elmer these students with both the broadcast station and amateur radio, they also try to provide amateur radio equipment to those students that pass their amateur radio license exams.

Mac McCormick III
KF4LMT