In March of 2006, I got to Work International Space Station Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR (Click Play on the right to hear the contact)

What a thrill! I got the QSL card in just a couple of weeks too. 

If you want to contact the ISS yourself, in the USA the downlink is 145.800 and the uplink is 144.490 and you can track the station here to see when it's going to be over your location

When I was first introduced to amateur radio, I was shown a wonderful award called "Worked All States." As a kid, I thought it was so wild that this operator had spoken to someone in every state in the union. I was so impressed with seeing this award when I was 8 years old, that when I retired Jan 1 of 2005, it was the FIRST award I'd go after.

I snagged it with only 4 months work from my all new station.

My next award to chase was DXCC

That took the first 10 months of 2006.

My cards were checked at the West Central Florida Section Convention (Tampa Bay Hamfest) on December 2, 2006.

Thanks to Steve, KS4WA for doing the checking.

So far I have 283 entities confirmed. Not too bad for 4 years work! It is getting hard to find new ones however!

Current DXCC awards:

In November, 2008 during a contest I worked 112 countries on 40m CW in just 6 hours. (Personal record!) Now I'm waiting for the QSL cards to come in!

DXCC Wasn't Cheap!

Total number of QSL cards sent out towards DXCC was 197 ( each including an IRC) at a cost of $364.00

Adding the cost of 394 envelopes ($6.00) and 197 QSL Cards ($37.43)

Gives a GRAND TOTAL of: $426.43 for the DXCC award...

Here's a map of my current contacts

Red countries have QSL in house and Yellow countries are worked but awaiting QSL card. White countries, I have not worked as yet.