Wanna be part of QRP history?

Then you may want to get on the air tonight. John Shannon K3WWP, will be marking the 10,000th consecutive day of his streak of making at least one QRP QSO a day using simple wire antennas.

Think of that! 10,000 days! That's over 27 years! Not only is that mind boggling in and of itself, how many of those QSOs were made during the poor conditions of sunspot minimums, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections? Keep in mind that the recent phenomena of RFI pollution which plagues a lot of us with high S level background noise hasn't made this feat any easier.

For those of you not in the know, John lives in kind a row house type of house, so add to all of the above, the lack of real estate he has to contend with. Yet, here we are at day 10,000.

Technically, Day 10,000 is tomorrow, December 20th, but since we keep to UTC, 7:00 PM EST tonight is the beginning of Day 10,000, so the milestone QSO will be made tonight. According to his online "diary", this is how John is planning to operate tonight and tomorrow:

Sat Dec 18 5:54PM - The two contests, Croatian and SP 160 should make quick work of day 9,999 of the streak and set things up for day 10,000 on Sunday evening at 0000Z in the SST Sprint. Then on to the following schedule to which I've now added specific frequencies:

12/20 80M - 3526.6 or 3525.6 depending on QRM after the SST QSO shortly after 0000Z until 0200Z

12/20 20M - 14026.6 or 14025.6 depending on QRM 1500-1700Z

12/20 40M - 7026.6 or 7025.6 depending on QRM 2100-2300Z

Remember I have strong local QRN here, and you may have to use QRO power for me to hear you.

I'll call simple short CQs like CQ CQ DE K3WWP K3WWP K. If it is busy, please keep the QSOs short.

So if you want to work John tonight, after he makes his landmark 10,000 Day QSO, he will be on 80 Meters until about 9:00 PM EST and the he will be on 20 and 40 Meters tomorrow.

Whether you work him or not, this is quite the feat. I have John in my log 63 times. The first time we worked was on September 3, 1994 during the Hiram Percy Maxim Anniversary Event. And back in August 2015, while I was participating in a Ham Radio demo at National Night Out, I had the honor of being his first QSO for the 22nd year of his streak.

Other than to those who read his "diary" on a regular basis, I don't know how many QRPers out there really know about or appreciate this streak. You'd think something like this would be a hot topic for QST or QRP Quarterly, but it doesn't seem to get much mention.

I did the "QSO a Day" thing myself back in 2012. Let me tell you, by the time December 31st rolled around, I was ready to pull my hair out! Conditions were bad towards the end and I thought that I'd never make it. These things take on a life of their own and personally, I was glad it was over! How John has done this for over 27 years is beyond me! All I can say is that he is a way better operator and man than I'll ever be and may God bless him!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!