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Today’s “Digital Planet” program on the BBC World Service features a section about HOPE, which in and of itself is really cool.

Know what’s even cooler? You can hear me “Calling CQ” from the N2H radio station at the beginning of the segment!

Listen to the show from the BBC’s website

Download the show from my website

This past weekend, i helped out with the special event station N2H at The Next HOPE. We worked everything from 2 to 20 meters, including FM, SSB, CW, PSK and RTTY. It was pretty cool doing digital modes for the first time. Here are some pictures of us setting up the antennas on the roof, as well as operating during the conference.

It’s been a couple weeks, and I finally got all the videos uploaded.

The PA Team

Here were the weather conditions in Waco, TX the morning of the event:

Yeah, not pretty. But we competed like champs nonetheless, and here are the videos.

• Stage 1 -Shotgun Jungle Run – On the timer teams will start in the start/stop box located by the tower with unloaded shotguns and 16 rounds of shotgun ammunition. On the timer, shooters will move to the pepper popper station and load (4) rounds each (max) and engage 4 pepper poppers from fault line. Once engaged, shooters will show clear to RO’s and move down trail stopping at each fault line station and engaging skeet at each of (3) fault lines, showing clear before moving out of position. Once all 4 arrays of targets are hit, time stops on the last shot. Five minutes max time.
• Stage 2 - Tower Scramble – Four shooters will be on the first floor of the tower. On the timer one or all shooters will engage the land mine with fire for a total of 10 seconds or until the mine explodes. Other targets cannot be engaged for 10 seconds or until mine detonates. Once mine or ten seconds have elapsed, shooters will engage other targets at their discretion. Each target must have two hits to neutralize.
• Stage 3 - Helicopter Assault – All teams begin stage in the start box. Each shooter will have their rifle and one magazine staged at one of the three barricades and one in the tower. Pistols will be holstered. On the timer one shooter will enter the helicopter and engage the pistol target until hit. After hitting the steel pistol target, the shooter will holster down range and exit the same side. Once that shooter has exited the next shooter moves into the helicopter until all four have engaged the pistol target. Upon exiting the helo, the shooters, either individually or as a team, will move through the obstacles (tunnel/window/wall) to their rifle station, where they will engage a steel target with six rounds each. Once the steel is hit, they will clear, safety and ground their weapons, moving to the tower, entering through the scuttle hole. Once all team members are in the tower, one of the shooters will act as a spotter and retrieve the target notebook and call out the steel box target for the tower shooter to engage. When the shooter hits the designated steel target, the spotter will use binoculars to identify the designated colored paper target in each box then call the paper target in the opened box for the shooter to engage with one round and one round only. Once all three boxes are opened and three shots fired time will stop. Five minutes max time.
• Stage 5 – Zombieland - On timer shooters will move from the start box to shooting positions and engage all targets with head shots for a total of one round in each head. Once all head shots are made on paper, shooters will unload and show clear and move into north 1 bay and engage all steel with pistols with one hit in each head from shooting box. All Zombies must be hit before any team member can move into next bay. All steel targets must be shot with pistol and all paper must be hit with rifle. Rifles must be cleared before moving. Pistols must be holstered. Once all Zombies are hit, shooters must move back to start box.
• Stage 8 – Hostage Rescue – Shooters will start in start box at the entrance to the North bays. On timer, shooters will move and engage all targets from shooting boxes. From the shooting positions in each bay, paper will be engaged with rifle and steel with pistol. Rifles must be cleared before moving. Pistols must be holstered. Once shooters arrive at North bay three, team will split in half, two moving to shoot house bay and two engaging targets in bay three. As shooters move to the shoot house, one will breach the door and one will move into house and engage targets. Once he calls that the building is clear, other team members will help remove downed person to stop box located outside building.

A couple months ago, one of the guys on the Cavalry Arms competition team was talking to me and telling me about how much fun he was having running a tactical rifle competition team. He showed me some videos of past competitions, and I was extremely interested.I have shot competitively in the Olympic style before, with stationary targets and stiff jackets, but having to coordinate moving, shooting, communication with 3 other guys, and solving problems as they came along seemed like a challenge I couldn’t pass up.

Here are a couple of the videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN_ycVrJGGY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SvMdcA0fp4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQxy5bGKQPg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTIhhOny4gM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxGNAMRxh5w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMHB7oaeWS8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNiH3-xstps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb5-BrDBR5E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLs4Rv8OHIw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGDO5Fe9n2c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BytWr0P1XnI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOaAcUef3Y4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15lxtkIaHew

One week later, I had organized not one, not two, but three full teams for a competition in Texas coming up in March. With 4 guys on each team, our 12 man group came up with the name “Awful Shooting Squad,” registered for the competition, and started practicing.

"Harry," the A.S.S. mascot

My team in the squad is the Pennsylvania team, so named because all of the members are from Pennsylvania or adjacent states. The other teams, Texas and Team USA, are also composed of geographically similar individuals, but none of them seem to have been able to organize a practice session yet.

The PA team relax after a day on the range

The plan is to leave Thursday morning from State College, PA. From there, we drive the 23 hours to Waco, Texas, where the competition is being held. Friday afternoon, we take some time to practice on the range, and then check into the hotel. The competition runs from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon, which puts the team back in State College Monday evening.

At least, that’s the plan.

I took a trip this past weekend with Rob down to North Carolina to participate in an Eastern Front WWII reenactment gig. He had offered, I wasn’t doing anything terribly important, so I accepted, and we left Penn State early Friday morning.

We took a quick stop in Harrisburg to pick up the equipment, then drove the 500 miles to Littleton, North Carolina. It was dark by the time we arrived, so we promptly got lost on the backwoods roads, and had to stop to ask for directions. But we eventually made it.

When we got there, the Germans had established a camp on one side of a large clearing, and the Russians (us) had commandeered the use of a cabin for the night. But despite being inside and having a roaring fire, it was still too cold for any of us to get some sleep. So we sat around the campfire all night telling jokes and stories, and waiting for dawn to break. And when it did, we suited up, checked our rifles, and marched out to meet the Germans.

Me as a Commie

Not the best picture, but you get the idea. More pictures as they’re posted to the ‘tubes.

The rest of the day was filled with small skirmishes and large firefights between the 8 of us Ruskies and 30 Nazis, comprised of plain Jane Wermacht, SS, and even a Fallschirmjager unit made up of of ex-marines and a retired colonel. Considering our odds, I’d say we held up rather nicely against them, despite that one time when the entire unit was captured and subsequently killed by those tricky SS bastards. Definitely something I want to do more of, and considering I was invited to an event coming up in February, I’d better get my kit together in a hurry, and find some better fitting clothes.

We took off that afternoon, wanting to get back to school that night. So we took turns driving back to Pennsylvania, switching off when we got too tired to drive. It was my turn when we cruised into the outskirts of Washington DC. We were barely in the city limits when we came across a rather large accident that had happened not 10 seconds before. We pulled over, hopped out, and got to work.

The gist of the accident was that an older woman in an SUV had stalled in the middle of the highway, and then was rear-ended by a guy in a sports car, sending her flipping across the highway, and landing on her side. The guy was fine, but the woman was bleeding and trapped. We tried to get her out through the sun roof, but the glass refused to break. So we tore open the rear windshield, helped her out, treated her wounds, and stayed with her until the ambulance arrived.

The adrenaline rush from that pit stop kept us conscious through to State College, and we made it back in one piece. Definitely one of the better weekends I’ve had in a long time.