Hello,

I'm just starting my Masters degree in Human and Economic Geography at the University of British Columbia. For a future research topic (probably post-Masters), I'm considering the Russian Far East region's (particularly Sakhalin's) exports of natural gas to Japan, and how these have impacted the region's workforce, both in terms of currently available employment and formerly available employment that has been "crowded out", becoming relatively unprofitable.

If possible, I'd like to meet anyone on the air who is either 1. currently living in the Russian Far East region, 2. from the Russian Far East but living elsewhere in Russia or outside of Russia, or 3. living anywhere but has a general interest in this topic. You don't have to be a specialist in my research topic, since I'm just looking for general background information about the region at this time.

I operate in almost all modes HF (although modes such as CW and Olivia seem to work best under weak signal or troublesome band conditions), and I haven't yet started to seriously learn Russian so a QSO would have to be in English. I run 100 watts (or less) to a dipole so I can't always promise a strong signal worldwide, but given decent conditions I can reach most parts of the northern hemisphere at some point each day.

Please send me an email if you are available to meet, or forward this post on if you have anyone else in mind. My email is nickbyrne22 (at) gmail (dot) com

73

Nick