By Ken Villone, KU2US, Event Founder
In just a few weeks, one of the most popular summer operating events kicks off – The 13 Colonies Special Event. Now in its 17 year the event has grown from Special Event Stations making approximately 12,000 contacts in 2009 to last year making 292,496 contacts around the world. The Event runs from July 1 9:00 AM – July 7 Midnight Eastern (July 1 – 1300 UTC – July 8 – 0400 UTC).
This year Event organizers are recognizing the 13 Colonies Special Event founder Ken Villone, KU2US, who is passing the torch on to Tony Jones, N4ATJ. For the past 16 years Villone has lead the Event by working with state and bonus station coordinators. Then after the event he would print out individual certificates for thousands of people who made contact with the special event stations.
The Special Event consist of one station operating in each of the 13 Colonies (K2A – K2M) and three bonus stations (WM3PEN – Philadelphia, GB13COL – England, TM13COL – France) each representing their city, state, or countries role in America’s Colonial period.
Villone describes how the event got started:
“I had just finished participating in the ARRL Sweepstakes in 2008, and remarked how fun it was. I could not figure out why there were not more of these type special events on the air? So I decided to try my luck and create one for one year only to see what happens and to have some fun. I knew we had to offer a special QSL card and/or certificate plus have on hand a printer and supplies. The hard part was deciding what the event would commemorate and when to do this. I needed a theme that ALL could relate to! Also the event would have to be the type with multiple event stations involved, like the ARRL Sweeps.
Then it hit me! 13 Colonies states, during the 4th of July week and offer a certificate with the theme for the year. I made sure the theme was different each year with a different certificate design, to make it interesting and to also make the cert collectable. The theme would highlight some event or thing connected to the American Revolution. The event was held July 1st to the 4th, 2009, 4 days with no advertising except on QRZ. I had a hard time getting 13 different Ops, one from each Colony state but it worked out. All in all it was a success! We did over 12,000 contacts the first year. I decided we have a good thing going so I recruited another Op from each state and ran the event the next year in 2010. We did over 32,000 contacts in 2010, and had 26 state operators total. There was a 13 Colonies special event in 1962 but only lasted one year, according to my research. (I was 13 years old).”
Ham Radio operators and SWLs can participate in the event. Complete information about the call for each colony station and the bonus stations can be found on the event website 13colonies.us and they can follow us on Facebook – 13 Colonies Special Event Community. Stations need only make one contact with one of the participating stations or they can go for a Clean Sweep and work all 13 Colony stations and the 3 bonus stations. Each station offers a special QSL card for the event as well as a different certificate each year. Operators can keep an eye out for the special event stations by watching many of the dx spotting networks such as DXSummit.fi.
Source: 13 Colonies
