Uruguay Special Event in August
The special callsign CX90RCU will be active throughout August to commemorate the 90th year of the Radio Club de Uruguayo, CX1AA.
Founded on August 23, 1933, the nonprofit group supports the interests of amateur radio enthusiasts all over the South American country of 3.4 million. The organization promotes a number of ham activities as well as Uruguayan culture throughout the year, including special events like lighthouse activations (look for our upcoming feature on the Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend, August 19-20); teaching of technical courses; a newsletter; contesting and commemorative activations; EMCOMM; and DXing. The RCU is a member of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU Region 2). To learn more about the RCU, visit their official website and Facebook page.
OnAllBands Geography Question of the Day
At 67,037 square miles, Uruguay is about the size of Missouri. This ranks it 11th in size of all independent South American countries. Can you name the sovereign South American country that’s smaller than Uruguay? Cue the Jeopardy theme song. Answer is below.
QSL Cards
The active hams at DX Engineering have had great success contacting Uruguay over the years (a good reason to contact them for help with your gear if you’d like to do the same). Here are a few of the QSL cards from their collections.
Tom, KB8UUZ, DX Engineering technical writer, received these cards from CX4ACR, CX1DQ, and CX1AA—the Radio Club de Uruguayo.
Dave, K8DV, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, worked CX5BW in March 2006 on 20M SSB.
Scott, N3RA, DX Engineering sales manager, made CW and SSB contacts with CX2AQ and CX9AU, both located in Montivideo—Uruguay’s capital, financial hub, center of culture, and largest city (1.3 million, or approximately one-third of the country’s entire population, live there). The CX9AU card features the historic Estadio Centenario, a stadium that was built in 1929-30 to host the first FIFA World Cup in 1930. The inaugural 13-team event was won by the Uruguayan team, which defeated Argentina 4-2. Uruguay won its second World Cup 20 years later, upsetting the host Brazilian squad 2-1 before a massive crowd of around 200,000.
George, K3GP, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, made an RTTY contact on 10M with CX4AAJ back in February 2002.
Scotty, KG9Z, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, received the QSL card below from Dr. Juan Bautista Rebuffo Assandri, CX2FD (SK), back in October 1977 (15M CW).
Dr. Rebuffo (June 9, 1907 to June 1, 2005) was a dental surgeon, science teacher, and licensed ham since 1954. From his youth and throughout his life, he was a tireless pursuer of knowledge about the natural world. Today, visitors can take a two-hour guided tour of the Dr. Bautista Rebuffo Municipal Museum in Colonia del Sacramento. This historical and natural history museum includes weapons, furniture, maps, and tools from the colonial period, as well as zoological specimens gathered by Dr. Rebuffo. These include a skeleton of the extinct Lestodon (ground sloth), birds, and butterflies. Fossils of the Lestodon have been found exclusively in Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, and other South American countries.
From a travel article in the Los Angeles Times from September 13, 1987, it was noted that Dr. Rebuffo’s fascination with nature extended to the many students he taught over his lifetime:
“On weekends many residents are likely to be out digging for Indian artifacts and the bones of prehistoric creatures such as the Lestodon trigonidens. You might not discover that unless you go upstairs in the Municipal Museum on the plaza and see the bird, butterfly, beetle, and dinosaur collections gathered by inspired students of Dr. Bautista Rebuffo, 80, long after they graduated from his natural history classes at Colonia’s high school.”
The lighthouse illustration on the card depicts the top of the Colonia del Sacramento Lighthouse, which was built in 1857 and stands over the ruins of the San Francisco convent.
I’ll take “Small South American Countries” for $1,000, Ken.
Uruguay pales in comparison to some other South American nations in terms of size (you could fit 47 or so Uruguays into one Brazil). But there is one sovereign state in South America smaller than today’s blog post honoree. And the answer is…at 63,251 square miles…Suriname.
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Editor’s Note: Every month, DX Engineering features QSL cards from our team members’ personal collections. To highlight upcoming DXpeditions, we’ll be displaying a few of our favorite cards along with details about what it took to make these contacts. We’re excited to share some of the special cards pulled from the thousands we’ve received over the years. We look forward to seeing your cards as well!
