Did anybody see this?

First off .....  Wow!  I seemed to have touched a nerve with the Vanity Callsign renewal fee post from last night.  I've only one more thing to say about that.  Glad to see you're out there, reading!  Sometimes you wonder when you do an undertaking such as this.

Secondly ...... was it just me that seemed to miss this?

I saw this for the first time in the "What's new?" column of May CQ magazine.  Usually, when a new QRP rig is introduced there's a big hoopla, fanfare and general buzz on the QRP mailing lists and blogs.  Did I miss all that; or did I fall asleep at the wheel?

Or is it the reputation that MFJ has for producing "Mighty Fine ....." that has kept this from being bigger news?  Personally, I've never had a problem with any MFJ product that I have owned in the past; and I've owned plenty of them over the years.

For more details, you can click here, which will take you to the MFJ Website.

A lot of my Ham brethren and sisteren (new word - just made it up!) have the philosophy that "you can never have too many radios".  That's a philosophy that my XYL would take exception with.  So as much as I would like to have a neat lil' radio that would fit in my pocket (I never did get my ATS-3B to work), I don't think I'll be forking the money over anytime soon.

You know, I was thinking though - I don't wear my high school or college rings anymore and with the price of gold the way it is ...

Before I go for the night to catch some shut-eye ....... here's a good one to try and work this weekend!  This was posted on the QRP e-mail reflectors:

This weekend Coca-Cola will celebrate its 125th anniversary. On 8 May 1886 Jacobs' Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, began mixing Dr. John Pemberton's syrup with carbonated water at a price of 5 cents per glass.

Most of you foxes and hounds know Newton White, K0NWT. In addition to being a regular fox hunter he is a longtime Coke employee, and he has organized an amateur radio event to commemorate the anniversary. Newt convinced Coca-Cola to provide a special QSL card, and a group of Atlanta-area amateurs will operate from the World of Coca-Cola museum during the headquarters celebration party.

The K0K special-event callsign will be in operation from 0000Z Friday through 0000Z Sunday (Thursday evening through Saturday evening, local time). There are two phases:

1) Prior to Saturday's party, a group of Atlanta-area QRPers will use the K0K callsign from their home or portable stations. We will use qrpspots.com to announce our presence. Operating frequencies could be on any band. The duration of the "pre-party" is from 0000Z Friday through 1200Z Saturday. These contacts will qualify for the special QSL card.

2) The "main event" at the World of Coca-Cola will run from 1200Z to 2359Z on Saturday. Newt hopes to have four stations running throughout the day. The primary emphasis will be on these frequencies, +/- as conditions dictate:

CW: 7.050, 14.045

Phone: 7.250, 14.260

If we are able to operate on additional bands, our target frequencies are:

CW: 3.545, 21.045, 28.045

Phone: 3.810, 21.30, 28.450

We look forward to working as many stations as possible. The QSL card will be a very "limited edition" piece of Coca-Cola memorabilia. The operating station on Saturday will be in front of the museum where hundreds of Coke employees and their guests will see our hobby at work. We will have extra hands on deck for educational outreach.

The main event stations will operate QRO but will certainly try to work QRP stations whenever we can hear them!

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72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very lest