Douglas County Amateur Radio Club
Nowhere, KS -- 1999
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A pleasant surprise this year was a visit from Larry/WB0UYI, who lives just down the road. This should squelch all rumors that Larry had skipped the country.
First order of business was to position our "shack", the DG EOC emergency communications bus, ably driven to the site by Prez Vince/KC0DLP, with Will/KB0WDW escorting. Then on to erecting the tri-band beam on north side of the bus.
Next came an all-band vertical, a Cushcraft R7000, for 40- and 15-meters, installed just to the south of our bus-shack.
Dan/N2PRC came prepared with rig and antenna for 10 meters. With assistance from Parker and Ken he soon had the aerial in the air and on-the-air from his truck-shack.
Mike/WB0LKA joined us this year after a much-too-long absence, and started things rolling by firing up on 20 meters.
While Bob/N0TFU fired up the 40- and 15-meter station. We were able to make contact with competitor W0FUN at Nowhere, IL on 40 meters.
There was some apprehension that the bus-shack would not be optimum for operating multiple stations, and we borrowed Pat Blair's shelter just-in-case. It was a bit noisy with four rigs going inside the bus but order was maintained.
The Nowhere, KS crew was offered encouragement once an hour as participants waved us on to beat the Nowhere, IL group [see below for The Challenge].
There is one thing SSB has over CW...you can transmit the neat sounds of the Midland Historical Railway Association's locomotives as they enter and leave Nowhere.
Nowhere weather actually improved during the day rather than deteoriating; actually was rather pleasant and allowed for much visitation among crew and visitors.
The event ended at the appointed hour and teardown completed in short order. Total QSOs is not known at this time but will be in excess of 200. Ken/KC0GL will get the logs and be very busy during the next several days with mailing certificates.
The following message was sent to John/K0RW, chief conspirator at station W0FUN:
Hi RW,
Well, the Club thoroughly dis-cussed the upcoming event at our last meeting.
Amid shouts of "hang 'em high!" a challenge emerged, wherein the W0UK group hereby challenges the W0FUN crowd to a duel of sorts. It is our
intention to engage a larger mass of participants at the Nowhere, KS site than can be done at Nowhere, IL.
A participant would be loosely defined as:
1) A warm human body who visits the special event site, of their own volition, sans threats of bodily harm.
2) Participant does not have to actually assist in erecting an aerial nor operate a radio.
3) Participant need not possess a valid FCC (or DX) amateur license (but will be immediately disqualified if they knowlingly display a Class D
license).
4) A participant with a DX callsign may be counted twice.
5) Participant is required to extend some form of support for the event,which may include, but not be limited to: offerings of food and/or
drink; loan of equipment; expending manual labor in erecting the station; shouts of praise to the operator when a QSO is deemed
acceptable to log; refraining from, or at least squelching, loud laughter when operator screws up a callsign; refueling the generator,
particularly if siphoned from their own gas tank; sign a binding agreement not to sue.
Each group should nominate a participant to photograph the remainder of their group when it is felt the maximum number of participants are
present. Said photograph must be taken between hours of 0759 and 1559 local, 16 October 1999. Assuming a dastardly deed of using a
timed-release shutter on the camera was not involved, the number of participants actually displayed in the photograph may be increased by
one (1).
Said photograph is to be submitted to our esteemed judge, one W. Unruh, upon his return from far, far away. WU is widely acclaimed from at least
three Kansas counties for his dexterity of the digits, and will be sole judge in determining which group had the greatest participation.
Best Regards,
An acceptance was not formally received, but I had occasion to talk with RW on 40 meters during the event and he did acknowledge a photograph would be taken at their site. Although their signal was rather weak, some stations were calling them, and they may have been able to make a few contacts. RW claimed to be operating on "several" bands and some of our contacts stated they had been able to talk with a station in Nowhere, IL and our signals were much stronger.
Our official photograph will be transmitted to the arbitrator upon his return to civilization.
We hope the big decision will be announced at the DCARC November meeting.
Return to the DCARC home page.