HOMEBREW HERO: REX HARPER W1REX AND THE WORLD'S BIGGEST BUILD-A-THON

Rex, shortly before questioning by authorities

Wow, Rex Harper W1REX deserves some sort of big award.  I hereby grant him the coveted Brass Figlagee with Bronze Oak Leaf Palm, but that is clearly not enough.  Rex spent a month of 20 hour days putting together kits for the Four Days in May QRP event at the Dayton Hamvention.   The results were spectacular:  246 hams succeeded in building QRP transmitters, and they all did it in under 70 minutes.   

Just as impressive as the results were the ways in which Rex overcame the technical and organizational hurdles prior to the event.  You can read all about this in Rex's excellent write up:
http://www.qrpme.com/docs/FDIM%202016%20Report.pdf

The OFFICIAL SolderSmoke Correspondent at Dayton was once again our friend Bob Crane, W8SX.  Bob caught up with Rex and somehow managed to get him to stand still long enough to do this interview:

http://soldersmoke.com/W1REXDaytonInterview.mp3

And it was very nice that Rex did this as a tribute to Dave Ingram K4WTJ whose magazine articles about simple QRP rigs inspired many of us.  Years ago, right after completing a homebrew QRP transceiver, I talked to Dave on 30 meter CW and told him that his articles had helped motivate me to build. 

Finally, no SolderSmoke post about Rex would be complete without a repetition of the video showing him transferring the prodigious mojo of the original Tuna Tin Two into my BITX-17 transceiver.