This week, your intrepid Surfin' contributing editor goes out on a limb and picks the top Amateur Radio Web sites of the year.

At the top of the top ten list of Amateur Radio Web sites is the one you are looking at now: ARRLWeb.

'Tis the season when the media picks its fill-in-the-blank of the year. For example, Time picked its person of the year (W), Sports Illustrated picked its sportsman of the year (my Boston Red Sox), Mad picked the 20 dumbest people, events, and things of the year (the Abu Ghraib scandal was Mad's number one pick), etc. So, it seems appropriate that Surfin' picks the top ten Amateur Radio Web sites of the year.

I am not a rocket scientist or any other kind of scientist for that matter, so this may not be the most scientific top-10 list ever compiled. However, the system I used to compile the list was simple, yet fair and I believe the results are a very good representation of the most popular Amateur Radio Web sites that exist at the end of the year 2004.

Without further ado, here are the top ten Web sites of 2004:

1. ARRLWeb (You're looking at it!)

2. AC6V's Amateur Radio and DX Reference Guide with lots and lots of links

3. QRZ.COM and its ever-popular license look-up links

4. The Amateur Radio Web Ring, the lord of rings of the Amateur Radio variety

5. FCC: Services: Amateur Radio Service, Uncle Sam's radio folk

6. Amateur Radio Newsline™

7. AMSAT, the Internet home of - the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation

8. TAPR, the Web site of the Tucson Amateur Packet Radio Corporation

9. IARUWeb, the International Amateur Radio Union's Web site

10. Radio Amateurs of Canada, our ham brethren north of the 49th parallel

Until next year, keep on surfin'.

Editor's note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, likes lists. He likes to write lists as well as read lists. He hates to be listless. To discuss lists and other delineations, e-mail Stan.

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