County Hunting

April 25th 2008, I decided to take on the endeavor of county hunting. County hunting is something I have thought about for many years, and with band conditions being what they are I decided now was the time. I began my quest with 241 cards in the box. Not very many, but up to this point dx has been my main interest. After listening to the county hunter nets on 14.336 and 7.188 for a bit I decided to finally jump in and work a few. My first weekend as a county hunter I was glued to the nets and picked up just under 100 new ones. I then worked QSO parties for New England, Indiana, and the 7th call area. I worked the contests and the nets pretty hard and picked up another 152 new ones. I know things will slow down considerably from those two weekends, but county hunting has rekindled my zest for the hobby. My dxcc total is at 308, so I won't quit dxing, but the addition of county hunting is great.

Its been overt a year since I've been county hunting and the counties continue to pile up. As of mid July my current total is over 2700 leaving less than 400 to go. I've been working a lot of the QSO parties and even dusted off the paddle and started working CW. I haven't done any CW to speak of since 1980. Jumping into a contest right off probably isn't the smartest thing I've ever done, but I survived.

I recently submitted my cards for the 10m WAZ certificate. I had been sitting on the cards for quite some time obviously. The most recent card submitted was from November of 1989. As you can tell I'm not one for paperwork. Within the past year I also submitted cards for my first ever DXCC and WAS. I enjoy earning the awards and collecting the cards, I just don't seem to get around to putting it all together with the application and mailing them in.

Click here for a map of all of my confirmed counties for the entire U.S.

Below are my current totals and county maps of each state.

County Hunter Links

County Hunter Dot Com
The County Hunter Web
County Hunter Spots
More Spots
County Hunter Forum
Another Forum
Planned Trips
MARAC (Mobile Amateur Radio Awards Club)