The
"PREZ SEZ"
by Paul Cassel ve3sy@kwarc.org

On the weekend of March 6-7 I had the privilege of activating the club's call - VE3IC - during the ARRL DX Contest.  I was able to contact 298 stations in a total of 94 countries during the 10 hours that I was active.  I was also able to contact the T48RAC Cuban contest station on 80, 40 and 15 Metres.

One of the operators from Cuba was KWARC member Don Fisher VE3ESE shown here at the CO9NLA club station at the University Santiago de Cuba.

The contest team were written up by Arnnie CO2KK who is the host of a Cuban Shortwave Listeners program heard each Saturday evening.  I also had the privilege of talking with Arnnie after the contest and he was quite pleased that a Canadian contingent was able to be on hand during the contest.

Here is a listing of the countries contacted during the contest.

Several of these countries are deemed quite rare so Gord Gibson VE3NQK the club's QSL manager and call custodian will be QSLing direct on some of these to assure confirmation towards DXCC status.

Contesting is a lot of fun and really does tax ones ability to pull weak stations out of huge pile ups.   Most of the rare countries were piled on by hundreds of calling stations which makes for interesting listening to seek out a pattern of strategy to make your call heard.

Anyone interesting in contesting can come out to Field Day this June and spend some time behind the mike or key.

Here's a bit more on the clubs Call Sign History
KWARC's original club call (in 1922) was 3ABA which appears to have been dropped shortly after.  When KWARC became active after the war the call VE3KCD for Kitchener Civil Defense was issued to the club. 

The call VE3IC was chosen around 1975 in memory of an early KWARC member and Radio Pioneer, Stan Jackson who was a Pharmacist in Hespeler.   This photo was one of Stan's QSL cards (thanks to Ted Bodman VE3CD) from the 1930's and shows his Queen Street Drug Store.

Knowing that he only had a short time to live, Stan requested a price on a life membership which was calculated making Stan the first and only Life Member of KWARC.  A brief History on Stan and KWARC is printed on the reverse side of the clubs QSL cards.

Interested in activating the club call?   E-Mail Gord at ve3nqk@kwarc.org

73 de Paul Cassel VE3SY,
president@kwarc.org