Football Saturdays are always very slow down at the museum—at least as far as the number of visitors is concerned—but I still go down there anyway. As far as operating the station was concerned, it was a lot of fun.
First of all, I managed to work several special event stations:
- W0CGM at the Milwaukee Road Railroad, Newport, MN. This station was operating from the restored 104-year-old Milwaukee Railroad Dispatch Tower.
- N4J at the Archaeology Open House at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest, Forest, VA. This station was operating from Jefferson’s retreat home and farm in Bedford County, VA. The archaeologists there are working to uncover evidence of life and work on the plantation 200 years ago.
Right after I broke with N4J, he got a call from W4JAM. I listened intently, with the idea that I’d get a chance to have a contact with him. As soon as they ended their short QSO, I yelled out, “CONTACT!” Fortunately, N4J broke for me, and John, W4JAM was still listening.
We had a very nice chat, and as it turns out, his wife has the callsign W0MAN! So, he’s going to send me both cards. I got two for the price of one! Both John and his wife, as it turns out, are both Honor Roll DXers.
I tried to work a couple more special event stations, but I wasn’t able to copy any more of those listed on the ARRL website. There were two that I really wanted to work, too: the Blackeye Pea Festival at the East Texas Arboretum and Botanical Society and the Nowhere, KS Special Event. Maybe next year.
Elwood Downey says
I bet that was fun to work those stations. Plus you grabbed another great callsign containing (indeed trying to be entirely) a word.
I tried using the ARRL special event web site but searching for keywords Railroad and Jefferson turned up nothing. However, using the tool at http://www.1x1callsigns.org/index.php?option=com_jumi&fileid=3&Itemid=9 returned K9R and N4J, respectively.