Shawnee's Bradley Scores High on the Air

Craig Bradley, known to some as KD9MS, scored 9th in the United States and Canada and 24th out of 955 entries in the world for single operators running low power in the American Radio Relay League DX contest. As a single operator, low power, he completed 569 contacts with 237 multipliers with an error rate of 2.4%.

The American Radio Relay League is the national association for Amateur Radio. ARRL is the largest organization of radio amateurs in the United States.

"Running low power is a chore from the Midwest as it is not the best spot to be able to compete with the East Coast station. This contest was fun because I was finally able to hear some stations from Japan," Bradley said.

Craig admits that he may not be able to compete as a single operator much longer. Bradley's son, Ethyn, loves to slip into his father's radio room and put on the headphones. "I won't be long before he will want his own seat and microphone."

Bradley is a faculty member at Shawnee Community College, teaching classes in electronics, astronomy, and computer science, all which are used in some form or fashion in amateur radio.

"My students and I talk about ham radio in class and we discuss contesting. Some students helped build an audio filter that can be used for Morse code contesting. Electronics class members have also built an antenna switcher for lowband communication." In emergency situations, amateur radio is just about the only reliable communication available. Contesting allows individuals the ability to work under pressure and for long hours in a competitive setting that translates well to an emergency setting. With all of the earthquakes and tsunami's and fires and just about any other emergency situation, knowing how to deal with the stress of communications helps operators get the message out