During the January meeting our long time club president, Sheila, K4WNW, handed the gavel to our new president, Tom, N3GTG. The club is incredibly grateful to Sheila for serving as our president for many years. And she remains active as our vice-president. Jim and Lauren continue in their roles as secretary and treasurer respectively. Here’s to a great 2023 for the club. How’s DX? It’s great! Consider joining DDXG! Visitors and new members are always welcome!
Our friendly club competition, the DX Ladder, allows club members to compete for the most new band-countries in a calendar year. For example, work a new country on three bands for three band-country credit in the ladder. Work an existing country on a new band, score a new band country.
Our 2022 DX Ladder champ is Lauren, WD4FMG. Lauren logged an amazing 724 new band-countries. And she earned her DXCC on 10, 12, 17, and 30 meters in the process. DXCC, short for DX Century Club, is amateur radio’s premier award for confirming 100 countries. That’s quite a year Lauren! Congratulations!
Ladder chair, Tom, and club president, Sheila, presented the 2022 DDXG Ladder award plaque to Lauren at the club’s January meeting. And members are already off to chasing new band-countries for the 2023 calendar year. Interested in chasing DX?… why not join our club!
Our DDXG tradition is to skip our regular December meeting and instead celebrate the holidays with a social event. And we LOVE Vinny’s Grill on Lauderdale (owned by our own Giacomo, KK4FTC, and his lovely wife Victoria). Everyone enjoyed the food and the fellowship. Of course we missed those who could not join us.
All of us at DDXG wish all of you the happiest of holidays and a wonderful new year! Hope to see you at our January meeting on Saturday, January 25th. And if you are not yet a member why not start of the new year by joining us. New and prospective members are always welcome.
Many members of the club participated in the ARRL RTTY Roundup contest in January. The combined club score was well over 600,000 points. Thanks to everyone that participated.
Our Tangier operation this year was different than what we have done in the past. We only operated a single station and let club members and guests operate under their own call sign if they chose to. We had a great time and made several hundred QSOs over the weekend. W4BNO has uploaded some pictures of the weekend to flickr.
Several club members got DXCC awards this year. Congratulations to these folks for the work they put into getting their awards.
In addition to DXCC, several members of the club received other awards.
Despite having known the members of the club, Joe Fijol, KJ4SSX became a full member of DDXG in 2012. 😉 Welcome, Joe!
Looking back, 2012 was a great year for DDXG and we are looking forward to more radio active fun in 2013.
Andy Hodges, KC4QYG, was welcomed to the club at the October 2011 membership meeting. Andy was first licensed in 1990 and is getting back into the hobby after several years of being inactive. In 2010 he became active again and started hanging out with the DDXG. Andy has been an active member of the club – he taught us all about JT65 and WSPR by giving a presentation to the members earlier this year. Andy has achieved the following awards:
Club member Lew Best W4LEW poses with his first (mixed) DXCC. Along with this award he also received his DXCC phone endorsement. Licensed for less than two years, Lew quickly obtained is Amateur General and Amateur Extra class licenses in order to take full advantage of the DX found throughout the spectrum. Congratulations to Lew for a notable achievement in an incredibly short period of time!
The club welcomes William Orndorff KJ4NPR as a Full Member. A relatively new ham, William is on the cusp of obtaining his Amateur Extra class license. Nephew of Robert W4BNO and quickly logging DX contacts, William now becomes the youngest member of DDXG. Welcome aboard, William! Here, president Sheila Blackley presents William with his membership certificate.
DDXG welcomes Dr. Joe Palsa K3WRY as a Full Member. An ARRL Life Member and the EC for Chesterfield County, “Dr. Joe” enjoys experimenting and working with equipment for seismic and weather recording, among his other ham radio interests. Here, President Sheila Blackley presents him with a membership certificate.
Husband & Wife 12m DXCC – Bruce WD4LBR and Sheila K4WNW both received their 12 meter DXCC awards. Presenting the certificates is club Vice-President, Josh KD4ZDQ.
Congratulations are in order for DDXG members Duke W1ZA and Andrew K4PUF. The duo, along with Bob W4DR and Ed NW4V won first place Virginia Section for the 2010 ARRL International DX Contest, in the multi-operator single category. The team, which operated from W1ZA’s QTH, also placed 6th for North America (U.S. and Canada).
