National Parks On The Air 2016

The American Radio Relay League really hit a home run with their National Parks On The Air program last year.  In hindsight I really wish I had participated in it more.  I worked a few NPOTA activations (including a couple with the Oro Valley Amateur Radio Club gang, which did not count towards my own participation credit), and never really made much effort to chase.  I did enough to earn a couple of nice certificates though.

Reached a Goal for 2016!

The last few years have been much slower for me in terms of ham radio operations, but I'm gradually finding ways to get back on the air and have some fun.  Earlier this year, I decided I'd like to see my "Total QSO's" count reach 12,000 on the ARRL Logbook of the World (LoTW) system.  I normally only log HF contacts and my LoTW account does not have 100% of all my contacts ever made, but it's a pretty good record especially for contacts from around 2005 forward.

Reaching 12,000 wasn't an easy task without any major contests and not a whole lot of daily activity.  Certainly my SOTA chasing and activations helped, as they have made up the majority of my contacts in the past 6 months.

I did reach the 12,000 mark on December 30th, and with a short NPOTA activation of Saguaro National Park on New Year's Eve, I jumped up to 12,055 for my final year-end tally.  (The screen shot below includes a few QSO's from Jan 1st and 2nd).

Not sure yet what my 2017 goals will be, but I'm sure that my #1 Goal, to have FUN, will definitely be a priority!