[SMCARA] 2015 US Islands QSO Party on August 29-30

[Daniel Metcalf - W3DMJ]

I received the following:

Hi to the St Mary's County ARA ( K3HKI ) and its Members: 

This is to invite the St Mary's County ARA ( K3HKI )and its members to
participate in the 2015 US Islands QSO Party on August 29-30  (1200-0300
UTC). Nearly 3000 islands have been listed by the 21 year old US Islands
Award Program and a little more than 2000 of these have been activated.
There are many more islands in the USA and its territories that qualify
for listing since an Island only need to be surrounded by water, at
least 100 feet long and at least 50 feet from the main shoreline. 

A mini-expedition to activate an island can be a fun club or individual
Ham experience. This is especially true during USI’s Spring One-Day
Getaway and the August QSO Party. Being on the receiving end of relaxed
pile-ups along with QSOs with other island stations and an expanding
band of island collectors can be a rewarding activity for K3HKI. Some
QSO Party island expeditions will be to previously activated Islands
while others will be activating listed but not yet activated islands or
new islands they have had added to the list. 

The first reported activators of an island have their callsign shown on
the list of US Islands. Initial activations require at least 25 QSOs and
contacts with at least two DX entities (usually the US and one other),
but subsequent activations can be as few or many QSOs as you want to
make.

Participating non-island stations are an important part of the USI QSO
Party, so if St Mary's County ARA will not be operating from an island
please consider having K3HKI contact the island stations during the USI
QSO Party. 

Information about the US Islands, the QSO Party and a calendar to post
your planned operations can be found at: http://www.usislands.org/ It
would be appreciated if this information were mentioned at your club
meetings and in your newsletters with the hope some members would want
to participate as a club or individual effort. 
73, 
Ralph, NM5RC 
US Islands Award Program Committee Member