Last night was the Fall Homebrewer's Sprint, sponsored by the New Jersey QRP Club. I try my best to make an appearance in this Sprint when it occurs each Spring and Fall because I'm a proud member of NJQRP.
I got a late start. The Sprint began at 8:00 PM EDT; but yesterday we had a birthday party for our two children. Needless to say, they were pretty excited and torqued up; so we didn't get them to bed until a little later than normal.
When I finally got to the QRP fishing holes at 9:00 PM EDT; it seemed like they were all fished out! 20 Meters was dead, dead, dead , dead, DEAD! 40 Meters wasn't much better and it seemed like almost all the signals were just whispers - even from guys who I can normally expect some pretty good signals from. I made 5 contacts in about a half an hour before I crashed and burned. My tank was on fumes from the busy weekend; and I was actually nodding off while the K2's memory keyer was calling CQ !!! It was a bit embarassing hanging it up after only 5 QSOs; but I couldn't go on. It also seemed like the few signals I was hearing were fading away into the aether.
This morning, I was a bit relieved to see a couple posts on the NJQRP e-mail reflector echo my toughts about band conditions. In general, it seemed everyone was experiencing lousy propagation. In fact, Joe Everhart N2CX, one of the founders of NJQRP metioned how he only heard two stations all evening long; and only worked one. I guess I should feel pretty good about my five QSOs, then.
One good thing - it definitely won't take long to come up with a summary log for Ken Newman N2CQ!
73 de Larry W2LJ
I hope to participate in the next one - gives me some motivation to build something! I have a Ten Tec kit and a Small Wonders kit gathering dust... time to get busy!
ReplyDeleteMissed this one. I had forgotten about it till I read the blog. Guess I'll wait till spring.
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