This weekend was full of festivities, from the ΣAE Columbus Day Party Friday night to the Karaoke Saturday evening at The Plantation that ran into the wee hours of Sunday morning.  Sunday was spent sleeping and playing video games - a much needed day of rest from the craziness that has been the past few weeks.  Now its back to the real world: work, homework, and gearing up for the biggest amateur radio contest of the year this coming weekend. 

CQ World Wide is 48 straight hours of contacting as many amateur stations in as many countries as possible, day and night, while competing against thousands of other operators doing the same.  We’re really doing it for the sport; CQWW can’t even be won by a stateside station.  Points-wise it is impossible.  About half of the competitors in the entire contest (usually over 5,000 logs are submitted) are in the US; and contacts with stations in the same country are not allowed.  So, most of the people trying to win head down to the Carribean, or to some island off the western coast of Africa, somewhere they can work both the quantity of stations the U.S. provides while still being able to work the quantity of countries required to get a big score.  If you have time next weekend, drop by the radio room at UTD and see what its all about, there should be someone operating from 6:00pm Friday through 6:00pm Sunday.  You could always bring us food too.