In mid-late 2015, after the fun in the desert, I remembered the existence of "DXers" - people whose joy comes in "catching them all" by having conversations with hams in every possible corner of the world, and going to remote/inaccessible places. Seemed like I might have something in common with them, so I did a little looking about online. Found that one of the more prominent DX-oriented clubs, The Northern California DX Club had their monthly meetings near my office. That makes that easy. I dropped in to the next one I could. The folks were friendly towards the random stranger that showed up to dine with them, and I got to watch an interesting video about one of the "DXpeditions", where a group of obsessed hams set up on an island in the middle of nowhere and played radio for a couple of very intense weeks so that the DXers who didn't have that island in their collection could tick a box.
One of the people I met at the meeting was Don McKee, KE6DM. Don was friendly, engaging, and also part of the volunteer emergency communications group for the city of San Jose (where I live). He gave me pointers to the city and county ARES/RACES groups. More folks to go play with! (This way, when The Big One hits, and the earthquake drops the rest of the continental US into the Atlantic, I'll know how to reach folks, right?)
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