Four ham radio contacts, all different

A few days ago while I worked on my bills and sorted through some receipts to post, I turned on the radio nearby and dialed around on the 20-meter band (about 14.250 MHz). I listened for quite a while as a ham in Green River, WY talked with Cub and Boy Scouts in several California cities. He was a former professional scouter, served in the Army, and sounded like an interesting fellow.

When N7COA left the air I twiddled the dial some more and heard a station in NY who was participating in the NY QSO party (see Note 1 below). I called W2CCC, he answered, and the contact was over. I will likely send a QSL card to confirm the contact.

Then I dialed around some more and heard a special event station at a Wildlife Refuge in Homer, AK. I called K7P and we chatted for a bit. I definitely will send a QSL card (see Note 2) and possibly $2 for a nice certificate about the refuge.

Again, I spun the dial and heard a station with an unusual call sign: T32C. I looked up the call sign and discovered they were transmitting from Christmas Island in the Pacific near the equator. I just confirmed my call sign is in the log! This is a new ham country for me (see Note 3).

A couple days ago I talked with some local friends using the 2-meter band. Two-meter signals can travel long distances, but not half way round the world. Technicians have full use of all the ham bands above 30 MHz, plus small segments in the HF bands. General and higher licensees can use the HF bands to talk around the world when conditions are right.

I enjoyed my three casual contacts.

Note 1: A QSO is a contact between hams. A QSO Party encourages hams to contact other hams within the QSO Party boundaries (in this case New York). Hams within the boundary contact anyone. This is one way to increase the number of county contacts, and helps me learn some geography.

Note 2: QSL cards can be simple (call sign, names, date and time of contact, band or frequency, and usually mode (single sideband, CW, etc.). Some cards have beautiful photos that show the area where the ham lives. The cards confirm a contact between hams.
Note 3: Hams count countries differently than the UN or geographers. Portions of countries (such as AK and HI) separated from the rest of the country by some distance (I think 100 miles, but not sure) count as different countries. So a person who works all 50 states will have 3 DX countries in the bag.