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The NAQCC Birthday Challenge Final Results: Call Diff. Birthdays Notes K3WWP - 32 All simple wire antennas (of course) KI4DEF - 22Soapbox: K3WWP - I found the challenge very interesting. I didn't get any duplicate birthdays, nor did I get anyone who shared my birthday of May 24. However one ham had a brother who shared my birthday and interestingly he was born in '60 and was 45 while I was born in '45 and am 60. I did get 3 days in a row near my birthday - May 18 (KB3LFC), 19 (W9FCC), and 20 (K8FN). I worked one ham - K3QLZ - just one day after his birthday on February 11th, the only February birthday I worked. No one I worked had a birthday in June while there were 5 July birthdays - 1,11,19,20,27. KI4DEF - The challenge was a lot of fun, and very revealing to me of the different types of QSOs I have. I wound up with 22 different birthdays. As did John K3WWP, I had no duplicate birthdays, and no one with the same birthday as mine (Dec 12). I worked one OM on his birthday, Feb 12, as he was getting ready for a birthday party (actually, by GMT it was early in the morning of Feb 13, but Feb 12 local time). At the beginning of the month, I set out to ask everyone I QSOd for their birthday. Despite this intent, over half of my 50 non-contest QSOs (28 of 50) didn't last long enough for me to ask (or the other OM couldn't understand me). As expected, this mostly depended on propagation conditions. In a few cases, conditions were okay, but one of us had to quit before I could ask. Not surprisingly, the 22 "birthday" QSOs averaged half again as long as the others (22 vs 14 mins). I like the idea of sending these OMs an email greeting or card on their birthday. One OM even asked me whether I'd send him a present! Looking forward to March's challenge and Sprint! RULES: Since February is the birthday month of two of our most famous Americans, let's have a birthday challenge of some kind this month. When you work someone, ask them their birthday, and if they copy you and give it to you, put it in your log. Then at the end of the month, count up the number of DIFFERENT birthdays you've collected and send them to us. The one who has the highest total gets a certificate. Depending on how many of you send in reports, we may offer second and third place certificates also. Pretty simple challenge to explain this time. Just a couple more things. If you work two hams who have the same birthday, you can only count that as one birthday. Also obviously there are many ways you can get someone's birthday, but it will only count if you get the birthday in an on the air QSO. As usual, the QSO's must be 2XCW, you must be running QRP, and the other station can be running any power. Tell us of any unusual ways you accomplished the challenge, such as all with simple wire antennas, all on one band, all 9 HF CW bands involved, etc. Some may think this challenge silly, but we think that if it prolongs a QSO beyond the usual RST, QTH, name, rig, wx a little bit, that helps increase the amount of CW on the bands which is what is needed to preserve this wonderful mode of operation. In fact that is the purpose of all of our challenges - to get more CW operation on the bands. ADDENDUM: Wouldn't it be nice to do something with the birthdays you collect? Well, how about sending the ham an email birthday greeting on his/her special day? Seems to me that would be a very thoughtful thing to do. I plan to do it myself. And for the statistically minded it would be interesting to see how many hams you have to work before you get a duplicate birthday. A long time ago (1950's or early 1960's) on a radio talk show called 'Party Line', the hosts Ed and Wendy King said that in a room containing 23 people, there is a 50-50 chance two will have the same birthday. - K3WWP Send your results to KB3LFC at: E-mail:  You must type that address into your email program. No attachments - keep the log in the body of the message.Postal mail: Tom Mitchell, KB3LFC, RD6 Box 122A, Kittanning, PA 16201 All entries must be postmarked or email dated before Mar 10, 2006. |