County Hunter News

Welcome to the first County Hunter News, a new monthly on-line publication for all county hunters, with an orientation toward CW operation. In this inaugural issue, the initial format will be informal with topics of interest, news items, updates on awards, concerns, letters from readers, and CW and SSB happenings. Contributions of news items, stories, and pictures is welcomed, and will be included at the editor’s discretion.

While it seems that there are multiple on-line news sources these days, this one will focus exclusively on county hunting, related ham radio activities, interesting stories, visits with hams along the way while traveling, updates on awards and other tidbits. This monthly newsletter is available for no charge to the county hunting fraternity or to those that might be or become interesting in county hunting.

Don Flynn has done an excellent job on the K3IMC website, and Dennis Hall, KK7X, keeps up a great website www.countyhunter.com with the forum page about announcements and other concerns. Both provide up to the minute news.

The ARRL publishes and excellent “ARRL Letter” for members weekly containing the latest information about breaking news.

We hope you enjoy the new County Hunter News. Feel free to forward, or provide links. Permission is given for copying or quoting in part in all (except to MARAC, Inc. or Officers of MARAC), provided credit is given.

If you are a member of MARAC, maybe you wondered what happened to the RoadRunner? Maybe you wondered what happened to the normal President’s column? Maybe you wondered why there weren’t any minutes of the Board of Directors meetings in the past several issues?

Strange happenings have been going on, and grab a cup of coffee and read about the skullduggery and changes that have occurred. It all started way back when - -

MARAC has some corporate bylaws, written in the past few years after the Midwest group relinquished control to the “Jersey Group”. It was claimed the bylaws had ‘flaws’ in them. In the new bylaws, if you analyze the fine print, it says that to be an Officer or director of the club, you must be a “member in good standing”. In another section, it defines a member in ‘good standing’ as one who is current in their dues.

OK…so folks go along, they notice their magazine or newsletter isn’t coming, and they send in their dues. After all, MARAC has over 600 members, so in any given year, lots of dues expire. If you are off traveling, or not watching closely, it’s easy to not get your money in for renewal until the last minute.

It turns out that N4CD had let his dues lapse. When N4CD noticed this a few days after not getting the latest RoadRunner, he immediately sent in the dues to the Secretary to keep the newsletter coming, like hundreds of others of members of MARAC have done in the past.. Ah, but it seems that KZ2P, continuing his long record of dumping on folks, with cutesy names like calling KI0JD the ‘magic carpet mobile’and running her off the net for six months, , the years of “Hey Dougie Dougie” taunts, has currently been bashing the “Texas Twinkie” (see story later on this). You’ll be giggling soon to when you learn what the Texas Twinkie really is!

Immediately, KZ2P declared that since N4CD had accidentally let his dues lapse, he was ‘no longer VP’ as he was no longer a member ‘in good standing’ and therefore couldn’t hold office. He immediately called for an emergency meeting of the Board of Directors to ‘appoint’ a new VP, and proposed John, W5UGD, as the replacement for N4CD, while N4CD was mailing in his dues.

Well, if you remember the recent election, W5UGD ran against N4CD, and was NOT elected Vice President by the membership. The membership clearly selected N4CD as the Vice President again. Bill, K2NJ was voted in as President. Or was he?

Now, if you think this is somewhat strange so far, the story has further twists. Upon checking, K2NJ, President, noticed that he hadn’t paid his dues since March. OOPS. Seems that KZ2P had stepped in the proverbial doo-doo in his ‘dumping binge’. Why hadn’t KZ2P been checking the status of dues of all the Officers?

So now you have MARAC with no President, and no Vice President. Bill is not a member in good standing since he accidentally let his dues lapse, too. Well, Bill sends in his dues, but due to the way the bylaws are written, you are not ‘re-instated’ until the first of the next month. So if the BOD wants to re-appoint K2NJ as interim President, it must wait a few weeks. That wait turned out to be months.

You wonder why the rest of the Officers of MARAC didn’t simply fix the situation? Did they bother to check with their constituents to find out what the membership wanted?

It turns out that calling a ‘special meeting’ of the BOD is not easy without a President or VP, especially when several of the BOD members/Directors have no interest in either having either a President or VP for certain reasons. Others were very upset that the whole matter had been created by KZ2P and his bashing campaign. One can be pretty sure that in the past, Officers dues have accidentally lapsed, and no one was ‘declared out of office’. So much for the ‘rewritten’ bylaws, allowing no grace period.

So, nothing happened for months. The RoadRunner had no President’s column, or BOD minutes, or Treasurer’s reports. Well, there were no BOD meetings! Ed, KN4Y, stepped up and provided longer Gator episodes to entertain the folks. Finally, Norm, W2LSH wanted re-imbursement for a printer he had bought. There were no board meetings to “approve a purchase” he had made earlier for a desperately needed replacement.

Finally, Bill, K2NJ, realizing that MARAC could stay n a state of paralysis for months, managed to get enough directors and officers together to call a ‘special meeting’ to appoint an interim President and Vice President until the next annual meeting. Note that normally there wouldn’t be elections for President and Vice President until 2006, but because of the immediate call by KZ2P, the membership will have to vote for an ‘interim President and Vice President’ who will only serve a one year term, and then have elections again in 2006. More hassles for the entire membership, brought about by the agitation of one person.

Now did you read about the special meeting? Was it posted on the forum or announced on the air like all the other Board of Directors meetings? Not a word was said to the membership. MARAC members were kept in the dark. In fact, nearly every member didn’t have a clue as to what was happening, and why the RoadRunner was an empty shell of a newsletter. Of course not! The skullduggery was kept as ‘quiet as possible’ from the membership.

At the special meeting, Bill, K2NJ was appointed interim President on an up/down vote. It takes a majority, of the remaining eligible BOD members/Directors, to elect an interim officer. He accepted, and noted he will serve ONLY until the next annual meeting, when another interim President will serve only a one year term, and has said he will not accept any further office. Also, the membership must vote for an interim Vice President who will serve a one-year term.

Now when it came time for the office of VP, it wasn’t an up/down vote on single candidates. In a strategy designed to fail, two candidates were run against each other, so neither would win. With a ‘stalemate’ occurring, rather than do an up/down vote on each, someone proposed another person to be Vice President. You can read the sanitized version on page 1 of the January 2005 RoadRunner.

Then it gets even stranger. Normally, K2NJ starts out page 1 of the RoadRunner with his President’s Column. He submitted his story of what had happened, but the RoadRunner refused to run it! The news was censored, by basically the same group that held the meeting in secret. They would not publish his column!

If you really want the story, give Bill K2NJ a call on the phone. His story did not appear, so your January RoadRunner has no President’s Column, and he has announced there will be no more for the remaining short term he is serving a short term as ‘interim President’.

Was this first time ever that the BOD meeting minutes was front page news in the RoadRunner? First time in years there was no President’s column from K2NJ?

Just about the same time this was happening, the elections in the Ukraine were hijacked by a bunch of thugs! The candidate who clearly had the majority didn’t win, replaced by the ‘pick’ of the thugs.

Now, of course, there is ample fault to go around. True, both K2NJ and N4CD let their dues lapse. Had any other officer ever done that? Was KZ2P always busy diligently checking, and why didn’t he catch the fact that the President was five months overdue with dues? Even stranger, the entire BOD accepted a slate of candidates and let a non-member be elected President of the organization, after he had failed to pay dues accidentally for months. OOPS! None of it done intentionally, but I guess if you spend your time looking for fine print to ‘dump on folks’ you’ll cause a lot of problems for a lot of folks.

The good news is that KD9ZP, Gene, the hard working awards chairman, has continued without missing a beat, churning out hundreds and hundreds of awards every month. That’s the most important job in MARAC. At the same time, the rest of MARAC was in total paralysis, and about the only reason anything finally got done to resolve the paralysis is that a printer was needed and had to be paid for somehow!

So know you know the ‘rest of the story’ for the most part, but feel free to hook up with K2NJ to get his perspective on what went on.

It’s been a while since I’ve written a column, but the county putting out trips still continue, almost one a month. Bill, K2NJ, suggested that while MARAC was in a state of paralysis due to the efforts of one person, that it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to send in stories to the RR. After all, both of us were ‘in limbo’, due to apparently poorly written bylaws that allowed no grace period.

I’ve just gotten back from a trip from Texas to Maryland, so I’ll share a few experiences. I’ve done this trip for the past few year to visit family in the Washington, DC area, and it’s a good excuse to go mobile! It’s not necessarily financially smart, as one can fly there and back for a lot less than driving these days, but I still like putting out the counties, even after 10 years of mobiling. One can save a lot of money just sitting in a comfy chair at home, maybe with a TV in the corner, refrigerator, computer nearby to surf the web between mobile runs, and with big towers and amps to get through quickly. No hassles driving, with weather problems, flat tires, breakdowns, logging thousands of contacts, unknown motels and restaurants, checking and signing MRCs, etc.

Gas was up to nearly two bucks a gallon in many places, and hit over $2.25/gal in California when I visited in September, so the daily budget gets stretched. Ten days on the road can add up to big credit card bills when you get back home, plus the wear and tear on the car. You’re also eating all your meals out, so I figure on $90-100/day for travel. Sometimes you can save a few bucks on motels, and I’m a budget traveler.

One of the challenges I’m working on is tracking transmitted counties second time around, so I try to keep hitting new ones – it’s getting harder and harder as I run everything close by, within 500 miles, so I have to make some long trips to fill in new areas.

It was December, and I got the urge to put out some new counties, so it was off on a long 3000 mile trip with the trusty N4CD/mobile. About six months ago, I had tuned the antennas for optimum CW work, added a 30M resonator, and found that my tuner (an LDG) would not tune the 40M resonator up to the SSB frequency. After a quick visit to the local Texas Towers ham store, I acquired a Hamstick type 40m whip which was placed on a triple magnet mount on the roof of the car, along with the normal K8CW/W9UCW triple resonator 20/30/40m system on the trunk deck. I was hoping for better conditions on 40m SSB that we have recently had. Lots of folks needed counties on SSB. The 20M antenna would still radiate 25-30w on SSB even though not tuned for SSB.

Now, I should note that bad weather had seemed to be occurring more often on my trips, probably due to just the law of averages, or that I seemed to notice them more! On the trip to California in September to go to Button Box Accordion Camp for a week in the Sierras, it snowed on the way home in Nevada! Snow in September. Not a good precedent for upcoming trips! In November, the floods had dumped on Victoria Texas the day before I got there, flooding out roads and requiring detours. (In December, I did manage to miss the foot of snow the got on Xmas day, the first ever White Xmas). Tornadoes were in the area and hit within a mile of where I stayed overnight in November! Oh, well, you get a lot of nice days, and sometimes hit some of the not so nice days.

It was routine leaving Dallas in December, headed northeast, until I hit Arkansas – then I had snow flurries as I traveled off the interstate to Dallas and Jefferson counties. That would be a preview of what was to come! I’ve been running a lot on 30M CW, which seems to be a superb band. As most know, county hunters have been intensively using this band since the beginning of June, 2004, yet there were still many counties not transmitted from on 30M. I made it up to northeast Arkansas the first night, found a motel and stopped for the night ($45). I’m usually on the road by 7:30am local time, sometimes earlier.

On CW, early in the morning you can start on 40m on 7039 as early as 1200-1230Z, and be working county hunters. Then around 1300, 30M starts to open, but 40M is still excellent with coast to coast signals. I wonder about the folks in CA up an on the air at 4 and 5 a.m. to catch their counties! During the day, 30M gives great results, and there are new folks joining the fun each day. In the middle of the country, 20M opens about 9am or 10am local time or later, other than the VKs and southern FL which come in somewhat earlier.

Each time I go, I try to hit counties that are both needed by the folks, as determined on the K3IMC site, and also ones I have not run recently. I plotted a path along southern KY, zigzagging, to get as many as I could while still headed generally northeast toward MD. People needed so many counties in KY it was a challenge, even though there are some active county hunters there.

I mark the maps, and try to really mark where I should take slight detours to get another county. Darn, zipped right past Calloway, KY – maybe a 2 mile detour, but forgot to take it! Worse yet, folks needed it, and I needed to transmit from it. Now I’ll be driving 100 miles out of my way sometime to get back to it. Maybe if you were waiting for it, now you know why I didn’t run it - forgot to take the turn! Maybe too busy running the county and not checking the map…those QRXs sometimes are for map checks. More than once, I found myself on the wrong road – I should have taken fork, and didn’t – and had to go back a mile or two or three. Fortunately, I only missed one county on the entire trip.

As I stopped the second night, it was raining. It was getting very cold. Winter had arrived. There were three motels in this town, and it was the only town around. Darn, two real dumps, and the other was $62. There went that day’s budget. I typically eat dinner, go back to the motel, watch some TV, then sleep, get up, grab some breakfast, and hit the road. I don’t need fancy furniture, double suite walnut furniture rooms, refrigerators in rooms, hairdryers, etc. Give me a TV set, with cable, and a remote, and I’m happy. After making several hundred contacts, I’m ready just to crash, get a good night’s sleep, and hit the road early in the morning.

Maybe I should have known better. The year before during trip up through KY and WV, it snowed for 3 days – terrible driving conditions, to the point where I had to stop early since the roads were so bad. Bill, K2NJ needed only two for WBOW, and I was out to get him Elliot KY for next to last. I was hoping to not encounter the same conditions, but that is not something you can plan on a week or two ahead of time.

This year, the snow started on the first day (flurries), a little bit the second day, and on waking up on the third day, very light snow was falling at times. I headed toward eastern Kentucky, where airline distances between towns is 5 miles, but the shortest roads are 15. There are lots of very wanted counties. Whichever way you turn, folks want ‘the next county’.

The weather was gloomy, very cold, but I kept moving. I hit a town around sunset – asked if any motels, and told, “One”. OK…$32/night for the motel, and the heat worked fine. Eight pick up trucks in the motel parking lot, and my car. It got down to 15 degrees outside. Several inches of snow were in the forecast. You can’t be fussy when the next motel is 40-50 miles down the windy narrow roads.

The next day, I started out early getting more KY counties, headed toward WV. Driving wasn’t too bad…just light snow, no problems yet driving. Well, that was until I hit Wolfe, Magoffin, and other tough counties, and then over to Pike and others. Then it looked like a blizzard. Most of operation was on 30M, with most contacts made on 30m, then QSY to 40M and to 20M. It was now a big ‘snow storm’. One of the fun kind with snow that sticks to the road signs, making it tough to read them as you go by. You drive along on strange roads, with signs you can barely make out, following the ‘tracks’ in the road, and hope you are somewhere on the pavement and that there are no 12 inch drop offs at the side of the road.

I was making slow progress, and had left myself extra time to get to MD even if I was ‘snowed in’ for a day or two somewhere. I finally made it out of KY, and figured it wouldn’t be too bad in WV, since I was going to stick to the interstates after going through a few counties on major highways.

Well, that turned out to be a bad assumption! The highways were ‘major’ but the snow started to turn to ‘major’ as well. There were snow plows and sand trucks everywhere. Traffic was moving at 40 mph. I came up finally to Charleston, and it was beginning to get dark. There were big fancy motels with big fancy prices everywhere.

It seemed that it might make sense to get past downtown Charleston, and to be on the other side to avoid rush hour traffic the next morning, so I went past Charleston. That turned out to be a VERY big mistake. Once you get past downtown, you find there are no inexpensive motels. No motels at all. However, there had to be some towns coming up, right? Always a suburb, right? Don’t bet on it!

Oh, I still ran all the counties I went through, even stopping on side of snowy interstate for one short distance county- quickly! Yes, I guess county hunter mobiles are little nuts to keep doing what they do. If you wonder why the keyer gets cranked up to 30wpm, and I don’t take QSP (relays) at times, that is one reason – not so safe a location.

Once you pass Charleston headed Northeast, you quickly find there are NO motels for the next 70 miles. There are lots of very high mountains, and the interstate goes up and up and up in elevation, and the snow comes down and down. Traffic was one lane each direction, moving 25-30mph, with lots of nervous drivers continually hitting their brakes, hoping I guess to go into skids? One car doing 20mph every now and then, and folks trying to get by in unplowed lanes and barely making it.

It was getting dangerous, and at each exit I looked for motel sign. NONE! The middle of nowhere! It was 2 hours more driving in the dark, with temps in the under 10 deg area, wind blowing 30-50 mph at the hilltops, a couple of inches of snow/ice on the roads, along with an inch of salt/slush/sand mix that kept getting thrown up on the windshield. More and more snow was falling. Surely there would be a motel coming up soon! It seemed like ten exits and no motels!

Finally an exit with motel sign appeared – Sutton, WV. I got off the interstate and headed the one mile to motel…nice 10 unit older style motel, $25 plus tax, and ‘good heat’ said the nice lady. I needed the heat - woke up to 4 degrees outside the next morning. That was the only night I didn’t take the radio out of the car for the night – too darn cold, and I figured there wouldn’t be too many folks out looking to steal radios at 4 deg and 6 or 8 inches of new snow! Dang it was cold! Next morning I warmed up the car a bit, and headed off to a hot breakfast, then onto the interstate headed toward the PA/MD border. After all, things had to get better, right? (Ever try sending code when it is 4 degrees inside the car?)

NOT! - this was not to be a nice clear highway trip. I got up to Monongalia, WV, and headed east into Preston…the wind was blowing 40-50mph, the snow was 12 inches deep, and the Interstate Highway speed was about 25-30mph. My window washer had frozen up, so that wasn’t fun either having to stop every few exits and clean off the windshield. Texas folks don’t use the ‘good’ antifreeze stuff, just stuff good to remove dirt and bugs with normal temps. Heck, down here the world comes to a stop at anything under 32 degrees.

I missed my turn to get to Fayette, PA -- so busy keeping the car on the road (and putting out the counties) that I didn’t dawn on me I would have to go on worse road yet to get to the county. Only after I got into MD did I realize it, then had to backtrack 20 miles to get Fayette after running Somerset, on a twisty 2 lane road. I was trying to run all the counties along the southern border of PA, and northern part of MD, and if I missed, I’d have to come back and drive miles out of the way some day to get it later.

It sure helps to have navigator to keep you on track. One other trick I use is to copy the maps out of a coloring book, and plot my route on it, showing what counties I will run, in which order. That works as long as you have the time to look at it while driving!

Well, about that time a friendly voice invites me to stop by for cup of coffee at exit 3 off Interstate 70 – N2OCW, Larry. We set up a time to meet at the truck stop, and we both enjoy a short visit. My car is white from the salt. His pickup truck is also white from salt. It turns out he had been out putting out southern WV counties, and got caught up in the same snow storm that I did. Even worse, his radio had stopped working, and he had to come back without any radio contacts! Even worse, he has to live through that weather for every winter, while I head back to Texas. It was a good eyeball QSO.

Then things improved…lower elevation, less snow, but still darn cold as I got further east – no mountains…. I ran the pairs of counties along the PA/MD border and the fourth night was spent in a small, nice motel in PA for $30/night. I had managed to not get snowed it, so I kept running counties for another 2 days headed down the eastern shore of MD, and getting all three counties in Delaware as well. It was clear – no snow and no rain! This was good county hunting weather.

I wound up staying at a motel next to the H&G restaurant in Easton, MD. It’s a small world. I checked into the Econolodge motel next door after it had gotten real dark (I’m not a fan of driving in strange places at night), and called my sister in the DC area to let her know of my whereabouts. She said, oh, that motel is next to the H&G restaurant, right? Huh? How did my sister know about some restaurant 150 miles from her house? Turns out she had eaten there several times when the ‘in law’ side of the family had relatives that lived on the Eastern Shore. Small world! Great rolls and excellent seafood if you ever decide to stay there!

Next day I hit the remaining counties in MD, fighting the traffic in Baltimore City to run that (nice place at the Greyhound bus station to run the City!). As soon as I leave the City, someone says, “I need it for last”. It is painful to try and get turned around again on 8 lane interstates that intersect with other highways with no easy way to get back. There are half a dozen counties like that one, including the boroughs of NYC. Highways that don’t let you easily turn around, turn offs that put you yet on other hard to turn around roads. When I ran the NYC counties, Aaron, WA2AKB provided expertise assistance and volunteered to drive me around through the counties. That’s the best way to do it!

I manage to navigate back into the “city” again, and get the contact while essentially taking a loop through the City and back out again. I’m sure glad I don’t have to commute into a city by car every day. Then it is finally off to my sister’s house for holidays and a couple days to rest and get some exercise.

The return trip was uneventful weather wise. I ran a bunch of counties, spent $50-55/night on motels, and zigzagged in MS, but no snow! Or freezing temps – in fact, once I hit MS, it was in the 60s/70s all the way back home! Delightful!

I did have the pleasure of an eyeball in NM2L – as I came into the Atlanta area, he suggested a meet, and we got to chat for a while before I continued home. Greg has been very active on CW putting out counties in GA, AL, TN, SC on 20/30/40M.

While sitting on a county line in MS, AC4XL works me and tells me he had worked me and my mom N2TPH there 10 years earlier! That brings back pleasant memories as we had put out lots of counties on trips together. Gee, I wonder how many mobiles still put out the counties 10 or 12 years after they start running mobile? It seems a lot ‘burn out’ after several years, or stop for health reasons.

Unfortunately, I still need to get to about 30 KY and 10 more WV counties, so who knows?? Maybe I’ll tempt the weather gods next December as I head north again. Hope we hit some counties you needed! Thanks for riding along with N4CD

If you listen on the SSB net, you might hear some discussion of “Texas Twinkie” or in short form the “ the Twinkie”. Seems to vary from week to week. Now, readers might ask, what is this fascination with Texas Twinkie? What does this have to do with ham radio? I’ll let you decide!

You can visit the page on Guide Horses. Just like Guide Dogs for the Blind, miniature horses have been trained to assist the blind. The advantages are several, including a life span that is up to three times longer, and the ability to perform more commands, and less overall training required. The Guide Horse foundation has trained many miniature ponies, and there is a waiting list of over 80 for them. The non-profit foundation gives the animals, at no charge, to the blind and visually impaired. In Texas, a law was passed allowing guide ponies the same access as guide dogs when assisting the blind.

Meanwhile, just sit back and chuckle every time you hear folks talking about the famous Guide Pony “the Texas Twinkie”. I just roll on the floor laughing when I hear this.

Recent posts by Larry, K5OT, Risto, W6RK, and Jerry, W0GXQ provided hard data to show that 30M is where to be for CW county hunting. I’ve had great success with 30M, and while things started slowly in June, growing rapidly, then fading away in the summer doldrums on August, the band has sprung to life. Imagine, a year ago, no county hunters were using 30M!!

Larry, K5OT, reported on his December Texas trips that 51% of his total contacts were on 30M, with 38% on 20M, and the rest on 40M.

Jerry reported an astounding 61% on 30M on his December trips, with 21% on 20M, and the rest on 40M.

Risto printed out the stats for December, showing 657 spots on 10.114, 530 on 20M cw, and 197 on 40M. I suspect that there were many other runs not spotted, as it seems some days only 1/3^rd or ½ of all cw runs are spotted, depending whether NC has internet access or not. Other days, most are posted.

On my recent trip from Texas to MD and back, the clear majority of contacts for cw were on 30M. After a while, one learns that most of the contacts are made on 30M, so why not run it first!

Isn’t it great that the County Hunters stumbled upon using this band? The sunspot cycle will continue down probably for another year or two, then slowly recover. According to the NOAA/SECC in Boulder, CO, the forecast for the sunspot numbers is projected to be at a minimum somewhere in the late 2006 or early 2007 area. We are on the ‘downhill’ slope of the 11 year sunspot cycle, and it is likely to be 30 months or more before conditions return to day’s levels again, and will trend downward for at least another year. Of course, these are predictions, and things could be better or worse than the projections. As the sunspot numbers decline, the ‘Maximum Usable Frequency” drops, which is already clear by the near total lack of 28 MHz activity, very short openings on 21 MHz, and worsening conditions on 20M. Additionally, the higher frequency bands are usable for fewer hours each day during the sunspot minimum. In the last sunspot minimum of 1996, 40M proved to be the best band for most of the day for SSB county hunting. This time, county hunters have two new bands to use – 30M for CW, and 60M for SSB, although there hasn’t been any known activity yet for 60M county hunting, yet.

As many of you know, one of the fun things about running mobile is that you have the opportunity occasionally to meet up with other county hunters, either at conventions, or while traveling through ‘their neck of the woods’. On my last trip north, I again had the pleasure of an eyeball QSO with Larry, N2OCW, at the truck stop at exit 3 off Interstate 70 in Maryland.

Now a dedicated county hunter, Larry can also be found on the 3905 Century Club net, where he accumulated nearly 50 awards. Operating both CW and SSB, he’s working quickly toward Bingo and Second time and All CW.

His home station consists of an ICOM 736 with wire antennas. The mobile station is one of the dependable IC706s with a High Sierra screwdriver antenna. He can often be found roaming the backwoods of West Virginia putting out the hard to get counties.

One of the things he recalls best about county hunting was giving AA8HH the last for WBOW in Martin, KY. He also took another all day trip to give a ‘rework’ to HA0DU to help finish him up. Of course, shortly thereafter, KD4HXM gave him his last for WBOW, and Larry was awarded USACA number 1106!