Belgium. OP2A.

I opened his QRZ page while fighting the minor pileup.

My call returned. I returned his call and said, "Hey! I got your QRZ page open and how come a handsome guy like you didn't come to Hollywood and become a movie star?"

I thought he was going to shit himself laughing and we had a wonderful brief chat.

It doesn't take much and you have to remember this is just a HOBBY. It's SUPPOSED to be fun.

Cast your bread on the water and more often than not you get back poached eggs on toast.

(Sometimes the ducks just eat it and paddle off. but the risk is worth it)

Let's face it, the reason we're hams is because we have faces made for radio.

I worked this guy who’s photo had an M14, pickle suit, pizza, and a bottle of Jameson

A pile-up for Belgium?  



It's true, though. Throwing something unexpected out there, or something just plain polite, can make for a much more interesting QSO.

When giving my QTH, I'll sometimes add "where lots of the farmers grow cranberries". You wouldn't expect it, but this makes a lot of hams laugh, and then they will usually say how they like cranberries, even if in some distant DX country.

For politeness, when there is a special event station commemorating an anniversary of some kind, I always say "congratulations for the 75 years!" (or whatever the thing is) and the stations always respond warmly to that, either with more info about whatever it is, or thanks and lots of good wishes. They are definitely happy to feel appreciated.

I correspond with a few PEs (Netherlands) who are into JRC gear. Would be nice to actually do it on the air instead of the Internet.

I worked the Dutch Army in Suriname a while back and let them know I was running a PRC 320 and got back three cards, a ribbon thing AND a unit patch.

They said they had just gotten rid of their 320s fairly recently and were using some kind of Harris rig now.

IMO letting the troops run the ham bands with their military rigs is an excellent idea and damned good training. It teaches them to be fast and accurate.

It would not surprise me a bit to find out the officers and/or NCOs checked their logs as the cards came in looking for busted callsigns.