[CQ-Contest] A fun story from this weekend! ( no politics )

[Bob Naumann - N5NJ]

Well, for me to have fun involving ham radio is very rare these days, but I
did have an experience Sunday that was fun.

I was running  (more like jogging) stations on 10m at about 28.388 Sunday
morning and a station called in from New England, KB1??? and was very weak.
He was not in the contest as he did not give me an exchange, and gave me
name & QTH.  I gave him name and QTH along with prompting him to give me a
QSO # and encouraged him to work others.

He then said "say where you're located again so my XYL can hear you".  I did
and asked why he wanted me to do that - especially considering the
common-ness of working from 1-land to Texas.  He was chuckling and remarked
that he was using a radio that he bought at Radio Shack on a close-out for
$69 with a 3-band magnet mount scanner antenna on the top of his file
cabinet inside his house - and that I was his first contact with it.  I
actually was thrilled by this and thought that this is what ham radio is all
about!  He could not believe that he could actually carry on a QSO with that
setup.

If anyone is interested, Radio Shack is closing out their HTX-10 25 watt 10m
SSB/AM/FM rig - no CW :-( for $69.

73,
N5NJ