ROUTE 66 ON THE AIR STARTS SEPTEMBER 9TH, 00:00 UTC

He's on 20M SSB now. I can't hear him at all, but I did bump into him on 10M FT8 just now and got him with just hours left in the event. So, after going out of town for most of the weekend and not thinking I'd get that last station for a clean sweep, I finally nabbed him! Managed to get 10 stations on CW too.

 

I finally got him early afternoon today. He was on 15ssb with a good signal, 56.

 

Worked W6Q on 20 CW around 2230 this evening. That completed my first ever Route 66 sweep. Woo hoo!

(Maybe I’ll even put in for a certificate this year)

 

I worked W6O. He sent me “599 RL” if memory serves. Did not say anything about RT 66 OTA.

He may not be a pirate. He (they) may simply be a totally unrelated SES.

 

Very possible. The 2022 66OTA page is still active here on QRZ for that call.

One would think that if they were going to run an SES they would see to it that they put the info on QRZ though.

Here's the info from the database:


And the details for "60 Years in Amateur Radio"



So, likely not a pirate, but not part of the 66 OTA event this year.

If you ask me, it was a little short sighted on Tom's part to request that prefix in this time frame, and to not publish info here in the database.

Also somewhat of a failure on the coordinator's part too. They should know since it's been used in that timeframe for a LONG time, every year.

But I guess it's first come, first served.

Looks like the 66 OTA crew isn't going to let that happen again next year! They've already got it booked for 2024.

 

Hmm. I wonder if K3TW simply wasn't paying attention, wasn't aware of RT66OTA, or even just... didn't care. But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter... ie, don't sweat the small stuff, and this is small stuff.

I do believe the 1x1 calls are first come/first serve, so if someone wanted the '6O' to indicate 60 years licensed... so be it. (I certainly wouldn't have stepped on an existing event, and I know many others wouldn't, but... )

Regardless, while the call wasn't part of the event this year, it wasn't a "pirate".

 

Yep, realize that now that your post caused me to look it up! Thanks for that.

It is sorta strange though, it appears that Tom did in fact get that callsign to commemorate his long time in the hobby, but yet, he didn't give people a way to QSL! Oh well, happy for him anyway.

 

Did anyone working W6O even know it was a 60 year anniversary? I saw it spotted many times as RT 66 but never once as anything else. Even though the RT 66 web site said that call wasn't part of the event this year.

 

Probably not! And I didn't even know there was a coordination page where one could look them up. I started at the FCC page figuring it would be listed there, and that's what finally led me to the web page that lists them.

http://www.1x1callsigns.org/index.php/search

 

I'm guessing that there were a couple of "W6O's" last week. One, who was on the week, or two weeks before, seemed like a legit one, while the other--the guy we heard more frequently on 20 last week--was a pirate. He had smart aleck comments like he was the "Route 466" station and made political references, etc. That was unfortunate for the legit W6O.