Hamming with Hammond
with Gary Hammond VE3XN

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The Festival City Amateur Radio Club recently hosted Gary Hammond VE3XN for his slide presentation, "Hamming With Hammond". Gary provided a very interesting and humours look at his active 35 years in Amateur Radio.

Gary recently retired from the Perth County Board of Education where he taught Geography at the Listowel District Secondary School.

His presentation represented the highlights from dozens of trips around the world with many of his students where of course, he found time to visit many of DX friends worked over the years.

Gary has set many world DX contest records and is a member of the ARRL DXCC Honour Roll with 354 countries confirmed. This represents every country in the world that permits Radio Amateur operation. The only current hold out is North Korea.

The definition of a split-second will be redefined the moment N. Korea is on the air and that being the length of time in takes Gary to turn the beam towards N. Korea when he hears the news.

Following his presentation, Gary was presented with Official Festival City ARC headware in the form of a Club hat engraved with Gary's call, VE3XN.

Seen here making the presentation are, left-right Ale Brander VE3CWL, James VE3TPZ, Gary Hamond VE3XN, Gary VA3QQ, Sandra VA3SMC, and Bob VE3HJP.

Representing the Kitchener-Waterloo ARC were avid DX'ers, Greg Hollinger VE3NXB, Gord Gibson VE3NQK as well as Mac Smith VE3HOO, Walter Fuhr VE3NQM and your Editor, Paul Cassel VE3SY.

73 es gud DX!!
ed.