I was proud to make a presentation about contesting for the virtual HamExpo arranged by 4Z1UG in August 2020. The presentation is now public on YouTube.
Tips for Being A Better Single Op Contester – Randy Thompson, K5ZD
https://youtu.be/zKl0Mi1N3e0?t=1
This was the last presentation of the Expo on Sunday afternoon and yet there were over 125 people who joined the Q&A afterwards. My sense from the Q&A (unfortunately not part of the YouTube recording) is that there is a wide ranging thirst for information about operating among hams today.
Hope you find the presentation interesting and educational. Please share it with your club and hams interested in contesting.
In May 2017 I decided it was time to step foot on the one continent I had not yet had a chance to visit – Africa. My son Andrew eagerly agreed to go with me (since I offered to pay his way). My parents also expressed interest.
We were amazed at the ability to see so many animals in their natural habitat and to be so close to them. The one rule was that we could not get out of the truck.
We stayed in tent camps within the park in Tarangire and Serengeti. We stayed at a very nice hotel/lodge for Manyara and Ngorongoro.
The links below are to the Google photo albums I created after the trip. My son and I shot over 7000 photos and videos. Be warned – the albums below contain almost 1200. There were just too many good shots to decide to remove – or they brought back too many memories.
Highlights were seeing a lion kill a Wildebeest in Tarangire, lion cubs playing (multiple times), chasing a cheetah until she found her cubs, and watching a heard of Wildebeest do a river crossing – 4 minutes of total pandemonium and adrenaline (for us and the animals).
The tour was organized by Yellow Zebra, who did a great job. The whole trip went exactly as planned. Until the airplane had a bird strike leaving Mombasa, Kenya. Turkish Airlines put us in a nice seaside resort hotel for the evening while they fixed the plane. So we got a bonus day and an extra country.
I was very honored to have Thomas Andersen OZ1AA stop by today on his around the world bicycling adventure. The odometer on his bike was at 40999 Km. That’s more than the distance around the world at the equator!
Thomas is currently riding from the bottom of South America with the goal of reaching Newfoundland. Follow his blog with amazing photos and commentary at www.cyclingtheglobe.com.
Thomas OZ1AA visited on August 21, 2015
Thomas OZ1AA ready to get back on the road
Thomas OZ1AA and his trusty Bianchi
40999 Kilometers since the start of his journey in Denmark more than 3 years ago!
In July 2013 I was approached by Steef, PA3S, to see if I would be interested in handing out the awards for the PACC Contest during the HF meeting in September. I am open for anything that promotes contesting. I asked for the opportunity to also do a presentation about the CQ World Wide DX Contest and he agreed.
We had originally planned to use Skype, but since I wanted to present some slides, we decided to use GoToMeeting. The GoToMeeting service was provided by the World Wide Radio Operators Foundation (WWROF). They use this tool to provide webinars about contesting and DXing.
The presentation started at 7am my time on a Saturday morning, September 21, 2013. Using the GoToMeeting video capability, I could see the audience and they could also see me. This was a big help for answering questions and for handing out the awards.
The CQWW presentation was first. You can view a recording made by Steef, PA3S, on YouTube below.
The PACC awards presentation was next. These were all of the awards won by various PA stations in each of the different categories. I think a big part of the entertainment was listening to me trying to pronounce Dutch names. You can view a recording of the awards presentations made Steef, PA3S, below.
It was a great morning of fun. There were a lot of nice comments afterwards from the audience. This demonstrates how we can use modern tools to help bring contesters together in new ways.
Thanks to Maarten, PD2R, Jan, PA1TT, and Steef, PA3S, for making it all possible.
Yankee Clipper Contest Club president K1RX had the idea of producing
some educational videos about contest operating. Geoffrey, KA1IOR, volunteered
to lead the project and single operator two radio (SO2R) was chosen as
the subject. I was asked to provide a demonstration that could be
filmed. We used the second day of the CQ WPX SSB Contest as a platform
to do some operating and try to capture some useful examples. We also
did an interview to help explain what was going on.
Geoffrey edited it all into a 22 minute video that was divided into
3 parts to fit You Tube limits.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 1 is the interview. Parts 2 and 3 show examples of SO2R
operation.
