Monday, January 10, 2011

Waiting for another storm

Seems like we're going to have another significant snowfall come through here Tuesday night into Wednesday.  In the meantime, this afternoon I had a nice conversation with Art WB4MNK on 20 Meters.  And to give you an idea of how much difference a bit of latitude can make.......

I was sitting in the shack while it was 25 degrees outside with wind chills making it feel like it was actually in the teens.  Art was sitting in his backyard, using his KX1 while it was a balmy 70F.   You have to love Florida in the winter time!  Art had a nice 559 signal into NJ using his QRP rig and a portable vertical antenna.  As I've said so many times before - there's nothing like operating QRP from the Great Outdoors when it's sunny and beautiful outside!

Tomorrow evening as the snow begins to fly, I will be engaged in my second slot as an 80 Meter QRP Fox.  Hopefully the static of the snowfall won't create major QRN problems.  I am listening to 80 Meters right now as I type this and the band is fairly QRN free.  I hope conditions are good tomorrow.

On a side note, who says that good can never come out of a less than desirable situation?  Unfortunately, this past weekend, there was a heated discussion on the CW e-mail reflector that sadly ended with some subscribers getting disgusted enough to unsubscribe.  However, in the process of reading the heated e-mails that were flying back and forth, I learned about an "online" Morse Code learning Website that I didn't even know existed.  It can be found here: http://lcwo.net/

Always interested in new tools that will help me improve my code speed, I registered and played around for a while.  This is a good site and will not only help you learn the code if you are new; but will help you improve your speed if you're a CW veteran.  And it will keep details about your progress along the way.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care send the very least!

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:42 PM

    Heated discussion on a CW reflector? Who would have thought? ;-)

    Thanks for the link to the CW practice site. This is cool!

    73
    Goody
    K3NG

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  2. Good morning Larry I hope this day finds your healing process improving? Ah yes the dog days of summer how I long for them....we too are expecting the storm up our way as well. Great link I book marked it and will look into it more when I get time...I too am always looking for ways to pick the code up a notch or two.

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  3. Thanks for that site - It's a fantastic resource for a guy like me just getting into CW - I'm a QRP type also (when I'm not satellite chasing, that is!), and I've come to the conclusion to get the best out of it, CW is the way forward!

    I've particularly enjoyed reading your blog since I found it a couple of months ago - Keep up the good work!

    73s and good DX from Dave in Scotland,
    MM3ZRZ

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