Just as I expected, I did NOT get the chance to participate in QRPTTF today. Surprisingly, it didn't rain all morning long as the weather folk had predicted. However, after I got home from work a little after Noon, the lack of rain meant that there was an opportunity for the lawn to be mowed!
After the lawn mowing came the grocery shopping and various other chores. But from what I was able to gather from the various QRP e-mail reflectors, the bands weren't in the hottest shape anyway. And while it didn't rain, the skies were cloudy all day and high temps made it only to the mid to upper 50s. Sound like excuses? Maybe.
On the bright side, during the week the Adventure Radio Society started handing out Bee numbers for the 2008 Flight of the Bumblebees; and I did manage to get Bee #27. So I'm happy about that!
The day was not without its Amateur Radio moments. Not having much success with the End-Fed Zepp that I put up last year; I changed the 1:1 balun over to a 4:1 balun. The antenna immediately seemed to come to life after - time will tell to see how it plays.
This evening, I decided to jump into the closing moments of the Florida QSO Party - on milliWatt power! It was amazing to see how many contacts I could make using only 500 milliWatts; and make those contacts on the first shot, with no requests for fills or anything! That was fun and is a true testament to the ears and antennas of the Florida Hams I worked.
BTW, since Florida is about 800 miles from New Jersey, all of those contacts were approximately 1600 miles per Watt. Not bad!
I have added a "new" blog to the list of blogs to the right. This one is by John Harper AE5X. John is an avid QRPer and outdoorsman, just like W1PID. He also has an excellent Website.
73 de Larry W2LJ
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