Ham radio is communicating with other people. Sometimes the person you are talking to is located on the next block. Sometimes they are located in Sydney, Australia or some other part of the world. If I have a choice of talking to someone next door or across the world, I invariably choose the person across the world. There is something mystical about the other person being so far away. As you glance at your clock and see that it is midnight on Saturday night, they are talking about going to dinner on Sunday evening.

As a person who always has to have a goal when I do something, what better goal than to work every country in the world! This is a goal I aimed at when I was much younger, and about three years ago I finally made it! There are some places that hams consider countries that are a real stretch! Because of the rules, some islands that almost disappear at high tide are considered countries. There are a few countries that no human in their right mind would ever live in. And there are some countries that the political atmosphere is so bad that to having ham radio equipment would brand you as a spy and get you killed. Yes,   but that's what makes it interesting!

Peter Island I is located very close to Antarctica. No one lives on the island and very few people have visited since the beginning of time. But it's a country in ham radio and so a group at an expense of over $100,000 visited this country so that all of us could talk to someone in Peter Island I. They stayed there for about two weeks with sub zero tempertures and winds exceeding 50 mph hour most of the time. Doesn't this sound like a great vacation?

The rules for what constitutes a country results in some very strange countries (determined on basis of location and size). This country qualifies at low tide, but look what happens at high tide.   Many amateurs disagree that Scarborough Reef is really a country, but it qualifies at low tide. So what do we do? A bunch of ham radio operators (I assume the other operators are on a boat close by) go out and spend a few days living on Scarborough Reef (if you can call this living). And why did they live there? So all of us can talk to these operators while they are living on the scaffold so that we can say that we have talked to someone in the country of Scarborough Reef! Is this a great hobby or what?

These are several awards that I have obtained working DX. The one on the left is for working every country in the world (I have actually talked to 344 different countries). The award on the right is for working 100 countries on 5 different parts of the frequency spectrum (I know that doesn't make any sense, but e-mail me and ask me to explain if you wish. That way I'll know if anyone is actually reading these pages!).

Suggested Links

	A list of all the trips hams have and are going to make to put DX countries on the air
	All the latest DX News and a complete list of DX countries
	A site that has lots of photos of DX locations and ham radio stations
	A Dx Primer to help you understand DX
	Swedish site that has announcements of DX stations currently on the air right now! Includes call signs and frequency of where they are operating.

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