Wow! I think I got my first Two-fer in the 40 Meter Foxhunt on Thursday night! And that on a day when Ol' Sol is tossing all kinds of garbage at us, with M-Class flares and coronal mass ejections and the like!
The evening started out by firing up HF Prop, a HF propagation prediction software program. With the Solar Flux at 96 and the K Index at 4, the program predicted that Dennis N4DD in Tennessee would be at about an S1 level. It also predicted that Dale WC7S in Wyoming would be at about S5. Of course, the opposite proved to be true!
Dale was a nice and loud (by QRP standards) 559. Just as I was going to touch the paddles and give him a call; someone in the neighborhood flicked on an appliance and gave me an instant S9 ambient noise level ! Arrrggggghhhhhhhh - Dennis went "Bye-bye"! Fortunately, about 10 minutes later, whatever got flicked on, got flicked off. I composed myself and shortly thereafter into the bag went Dennis' pelt.
A few minutes later, at the other end of the frequency range I heard Ann AB1DR's loud signal from up in New Hampshire calling Dale. Thanks for the guidance, Ann! By turning the VFO down a touch, I was able to finally hear Dale who was 339 and maybe 449 when the QSB would abate for a very short period. After calling a few times, I'm about 90% certain that Dale came back to me and that we completed the exchange. I'll know for sure when Dale posts his log for the night on the QRP Foxhunting e-mail reflector tomorrow.
Who would have guessed that when solar conditions were so abnormal as to make a headline on "The Drudge Report" that I might have gotten my first double pelt session of the season!
Go figure!
73 de Larry W2LJ
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