Thursday, February 17, 2011

Not a great night

"Sometimes you're the Louisville Slugger - sometimes you're the ball".

"Sometimes you're the windshield - sometimes you're the bug".

"Sometimes you eat the bear - sometimes the bear eats you".

It appears that I was on the short end of the stick tonight.  I was trying to work Don NK6A in CA on the 40 Meter QRP-L Fox Hunt.  Charles W2SH, who lives eight miles away from me was successful - good for him!  For me, Don was at best a 229.  Very weak and lots of QRM to boot.  What a difference eight miles and some extra added elevation (plus the fact that Charles is a much higher skilled op than me) can make!

So I thought I'd flick on over to QRPSPOTS and at least see where K6JSS/7 in Arizona was operating. 10.106 - 10.107 MHZ and I could not hear a thing!  If  Tom AC7A was on the air; I sure wasn't able to hear him.  I hope this weekend is successful.  I have no illusions that I will work all 50 K6JSS stations; but I don't want to go down so early in the count!  Tom mentioned that due to the ARRL DX Contest this weekend that K6JSS/7 might stay mainly on the WARC bands.  Maybe I'll have better luck on 17 Meters this coming Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

On the logging front ..... I have left AC Log behind and an now using Ham Radio Deluxe exclusively.  I have not mastered it by any stretch of the imagination, but have figured out most of the ins and outs of the program.  I don't use the rig control features (yet), or hardly any of the bells and whistles, but I like how the program looks and works. And I also like that I can grow into this program and who knows, maybe a year or two down the road, I just might use the features I am not using presently.  Now, is that a ringing endorsement, or what?

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

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