For a while it looked like I was going to be skunked on the last night of the 40 Meter Foxhunt season. After the session started at 0100 UTC, I found Craig VE4WI very quickly. There was a lot of QSB; but for the most part, he was loud into New Jersey. But I listened and sent out my call for over an hour with no success. I switched over from the G5RV to the Butternut, thinking that the take off angle of the vertical might improve my chances. However, the vertical was so noisy tonight that it all but drowned out Craig's signal.
Then a thought occurred to me. Why not transmit on the Butternut and listen on the G5RV? The "Ant 1/2" button on the K2 would make that so easy! And that's what I did; and within a couple of minutes, I had Craig in the log. New Jersey to Manitoba on 5 Watts - sweet!
I quickly headed down to the bottom of Fox territory and easily found Drew K9CW (love that call!). I ended bagging his pelt on my first call, with only 17 minutes left in the hunt. A "Two-fer" to end the season. Sometimes, life is very good indeed.
While I was listening and trying for Craig with no luck, I was also melting more solder on the PFR3A. I have pretty much completed the Group 3 - transmitter build section. I performed all the voltage tests, which all came out perfectly. All I have to do to finish the section is to wind and install L7. Maybe beginning tomorrow night I can continue on to to the Group 4 - low pass filter section.
72 de Larry W2LJ
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