I really had a blast yesterday participating in the 2008 NC QSO Party. Several of the experienced hams in the area gathered at the Natural Science Center where we have a station set up: K4NSC (Kids 4 Natural Science Center). They have two HF radios set up and any licensed amateur can operate them.

This was my first time on HF, so it was all new to me. One of the guys there gave me a good tutorial on how to operate the radio and what contesting etiquette is. He said "OK, I'm going to just assume that you don't know anything and start from there." I *really* appreciated that, since I really didn't know anything about that kind of operating.

I was only there for about 2 hours (out of the 4.5 hours they had the station running). During that time, we made contacts with people all over the country: Michigan, Kansas, Maine, California (a guy on a cruise ship), Wisconsin. I think the coolest part was that we made a contact with a guy in Cuba! All of our contacts were brief, but it was still a lot of fun.

I'm really looking forward to doing more HF work. I think it will be fun to do some HF that isn't related to contesting -- so the contacts can be more leisurely and more of a chat instead of a quick exchange of information and moving on. Hopefully it won't be too long before I'm able to get the HF rig that my uncle lent me set up at the house. Until then, I think I'll try to make a point to stop by the science center from time to time and try to make contacts from there.

I'm glad that I finally got into ham radio -- it's so much fun!