16 Maidenhead QRA: Ham Radio Challenge
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Size: 
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Cache is at cache coordinates, but you must meet the challenge requirements before logging the cache. Any logs that do not meet the requirements will be deleted until such time the requirements are met.
We see many location-based challenge caches. Some are for counties, or states, or countries. Others have altitude or difficulty requirements. And then there are those that need a certain number of pages from certain atlases.
This challenge is along the lines of GCWXFK ( The Colorado DeLorme Challenge) but much easier.
The problem with DeLorme (and other atlases) is that some states are larger than others. Which causes a problem with the number of pages your atlas has when compared to the atlases of other states. Colorado, for example has 91 pages in 3 different sizes, while a small state such as Connecticut, has 40 pages. Colorado, at 104,100 square miles, is nearly 15 times as large as Connecticut, but the atlas has only 2 and a quarter times the pages!
Which is not such a problem geocaching-wise. Who would want to do a Colorado DeLorme Challenge if the atlas had a 224-page requirement? Well, I might, but then again…
For years amateur radio operators (Hams, as we like to be called) have been doing challenges similar to the caching challenges we all know and love. There’s a 14’ers contact challenge, a Worked All States challenge, a Worked All Continents, a Worked All Countries, etc, etc, etc.
Hams, it turns out, are a lot like us.
So much so, that many of us geocachers are also ham-radio licensed!
But back to the topic at hand: back in the old days of ham radio, European hams used a system similar to our DeLorme atlases for a grid based radio challenge. The QRA system (Or QTH Locater System in some books; hence the QTH code used in Morse Code when referring to one’s home) was a great system when used in Europe (wiki article here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QRA_locator), but there was nothing similar in the United States. So in 1980 American hams under the American Radio Relay League started using a grid locater system called Maidenhead- named for the district in England where it was devised.
The Maidenhead system breaks the Earth up into zones of latitude and longitude. Each pair of numbers and letters is a more refined location- the first digit in any pair is longitude, the second is latitude. For the basic, big squares, (the first two letters) the Earth is broken up into 324 (18 squared) Maidenhead fields; each “rectangle” (not quite, the Earth is spherical) is 10 degrees tall and 20 degrees wide.
But those are some pretty big squares. Square DM, which contains most of Colorado, runs from California to Kansas, and from just north of Thornton down into Mexico. So challenge would be pretty easy- you would only need 1 square!
Not so fast. There are subsquares. And sub-sub squares- or extended squares.
For the next level, the coordinates switch from letters to numbers. For example, where I currently live is in DM79. The D and the 7 designate- you got it- longitude, and the M and the 9 are latitude. This grid, one of 16 in Colorado (hence the cache name), runs from Boulder to Black Forest, and is 1 degree of latitude from top to bottom, and two degrees across.
If you add another pair of letters, you become 10x more refined. Aurora, or my house at least, is in grid square (subsquare) DM79nq. By the time you add the second set of numbers and become even 10x more accurate, you are getting refined enough to hunt for geocaches.
The challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to find 16 geocaches in Colorado-one in each gridsquare (to four digits). In places where the gridsquare extends outside of Colorado’s borders, the cache must be from inside Colorado.
Told you it was easy.
All kinds of caches count. Virtuals, Earthcaches, even webcam caches and events. To log your finds, please list the 6 or 8 digit Maidenhead location of each cache, the cache’s GC number and the date found. Most GPS devices will list Maidenhead coords under the “units” section of the settings. We prefer a bookmark of your 16 qualifying finds, but of course will accept a list in the logs if you don't have bookmarks.
We will be placing more ham-radio challenge caches in anticipation of Hamcon 2013 in Estes Park. This is an amateur radio mega event for the Rocky Mountain Division, and is held in Colorado once every 4 years.
Remember when caching brought you someplace cool? We hope the view at least makes this find worth it. Cache is a cammoed peanut butter jar with some goodies. Beware of broken glass: This is a popular spot, and some people just seem incapable of cleaning up after themselves. If you do not wish to make your list public, feel free to send your info in a private message.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Gerr onfr