Two Aussies and a Japanese guy walk into a bar…

Or so it seemed when I worked VK2LAW, VK6DW, and JE2GEG right out of the chute this morning. I knew the band was long when I first fired off a few CQ’s on 20 meters and received multiple RBN results from VK and ZL receivers, a good sign for DX to the South Pacific.

None of these were new entities, but I never turn down an opportunity to work any station in those regions. Australia seems so far away and exotic in my mind that I’m compelled to call whenever I hear a VK. Same goes for Japan where there’s actually an award for working all prefectures there and I’d like to one day hang that paper on the wall:

Japan consists of 47 administrative units below their national government. These entities, called prefectures, are roughly analogous to states in the United States. The Japan Amateur Radio League (JARL) sponsors the Worked All Japan Prefectures Award (WAJA) for making contact with at least one Ham Radio operator in each of these prefectures.

I need to do a little bookkeeping to see where I stand in that particular quest. I haven’t checked recently. Yes, there’s an app for that. Whose surprised? Work ‘em all and do the paperwork later has always been my method…