Today was the North American QSO Party or NAQP for short. It runs until 1:00 AM Sunday morning. I decided to get on and give it a whirl. The bands were crowded; and I was just playing around, doing some S&Ping (searching and pouncing) for the louder signals on 40 and 80 Meters. Yes, to my delight, 40 Meters was usable tonight!. In about an hour, I worked 20+ stations. No great shakes; and perhaps even crummy by "Big Contester" standards. But I was just getting my QSO for the day in and adding to my QSO tally for the year. Best DX was working Puerto Rico on 40 Meters. And I was able to make contact with BOTH the HF9V and the G5RV. My temporary fix on the vertical seems to be holding up just fine.
The day here was busy from sunup until sundown. It was pleasant to be able to spend an hour behind the rig, getting to listen to the magic of radio.
What a difference a few days makes, huh? Last Tuesday we flirted with the 70 F degree mark. Definitely not typical for January. On tonight's news, I heard the weatherman mention the possibility of 3 to 6 inches of snow come Monday morning!
With that, I am going to put an end to the rambling. Maybe either tomorrow or the next day, I will comment on an article that I just got to reading in the January issue of "Worldradio" magazine . The author and I seem to be pretty much on the same page as to the effects of the abolition of the CW requirement for Amateur Radio licenses.
73 de Larry W2LJ
I was able to put about 45 in the log from my K2 and G5RV with just a few hours of operation. Sorry I didn't work you!
ReplyDeleteIf you were wondering why you copied the name "Shannon" so often last night, the answer appeared on the Yankee Clipper Contest Club reflector this morning. The name Shannon in memory of Shannon Harps, the 31 year old daughter of
K8NZ, who tragically was killed on New Year's Eve. The story of this can be found at:
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=stabbing03m&date=20080103&query=shannon+harps
-- Scott (NE1RD)