6800 mile contact

BU Amateur Radio Club joined the ARRL DX Contest on Saturday, March 3 2012 from 10AM to 8PM.

Preparation of W1BUR HF broadband dipole

Non-conductive HF antenna mast
Reinstalling the W1BUR HF broadband dipole antenna mast.

Operation

We had several operators including guest operators. Below is a clip of BU student contacting another station in Italy, II9T. Distance from Boston to Italy is about 4000 miles!

All stations identify themselves with a unique callsign - it’s like a license plate on a car. BU Amateur Radio Club has a callsign W1BUR, and the station we talked to was II9T. For the ARRL DX Contest, stations in US sends signal report and the State as a contest number, and non-US stations send signal report and power output. So, “59 500” means:

I hear you loud and clear and I’m transmitting at 500 Watts

while “59 MA” means

I hear you loud and clear and I’m in Massachusetts.

On this day, W1BUR had made contacts with following countries and regions:

Enlarge map: W1BUR contacts: 3 Mar 2012

The furthest contact was with Pakistan - about 6800 miles from Boston. We thank all those for stopping by at W1BUR.