Last Thursday (May 29, 2003) I was paid a visit by Chris Burger, ZS6EZ
from the Republic of South Africa. I had worked Chris a couple of times
on 160-meter CW and he was in Palmdale to update the software in one of
the Heavy Vehicle Simulators owned by the State of California that was
made by the company Chris works for in ZS-land. I learned several things
about this remarkable individual during his visit.
He is credited with DXCC by the ARRL for every band from 160 to 6 meters.
That's at least 100 countries on each one of those 10 bands! Very few,
if any other, hams can make this claim.
He also is at the top of the DXCC Honor Roll, having worked every one of
the 335 countries on the current ARRL DXCC List. I had no idea that he
was such a big gun DXer.
Chris is now building a 2-meter az-el array of stacked Yagis with the
goal of achieving DXCC on that band via moonbounce.
Chris has been on several one-man DXpeditions to activate a number of
rare African countries.
He also has an FCC Amateur Extra Class license (20 wpm CW). His USA
callsign is N3EZ.
Chris is an accomplished pilot with over 5000 hours of flying time which
is one of NASA's requirements to become an astronaut. He has a master's
degree in math (and a bachelor's in some other field) which is also
required by NASA. NASA has asked him to submit an application to become
an astronaut. He is 38 years old (the average age of new astronauts is
39). Hopefully someday we'll hear his callsign from space.
73, de Earl, K6SE
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