And again this morning!

Today is "President's Day" in the USA; a national holiday to honor and celebrate all those who have held the office of President of the United States over our 200+ year history. I know, as far as age goes, we're still "babes in the woods" compared to a lot of you other nations out there; but hey, it's a day off from work!

But even a day off from work doesn't necessarily mean I can spend the day goofing off. There are chores to be done and places to go. BUT ...... I did get on 17 Meters for a few minutes this morning and worked UY5ZZ in the Ukraine and ES4NG in Estonia. I have worked Estonia before; but not since going totally QRP; so this is kind of a "new one" for me.

It is SOOOOO nice to see the bands awakening. I guess it will be a slow wake up process as they've seemed dead for so many months now. But, I think that this is a good sign for this coming weekend's ARRL International DX Contest. I'm pretty confident that the bands won't go back to being COMPLETELY dead this coming weekend; so it should be a fun time.

If you're a QRP Op and you find yourself struggling towards completing DXCC using low power, this is prime opportunity for you! If you're just starting, you should be able to harvest a bumper crop of new DXCC entities in your log. If you're close to finishing working your first hundred, then with sharp ears you should also be able to reach that first century goal.

As for me; I'm just going to continue to see how many countries I can snare using QRP power levels. Estonia brings me up to 103, which 1s not all that far away from my regular QRO total of 133.

A thought just occurred to me ...... I now qualify for the QRP-ARCI's "QRP DX" award! I am going to have to reprint out my application for ARRL's "QRP DXCC" and send it off to Jay Bromley. I really enjoy the QRP-ARCI's awards program. There is some personal satisfaction in qualifying for an award offered by a large QRP dedicated organization. Don't get me wrong, the ARRL's "DXCC QRP" award is nice; and I'm glad to have earned it; but the ARRL doesn't quite "get" QRP like QRP-ARCI does.

72 de Larry W2LJ