Cold!

As with much of the rest of the US, New Jersey has been immersed in the deep freeze.  It was only 22F (-5C) when I woke up and left for work this morning. And during lunchtime, it only got up to about 30F (-1C). And the wind is howling at times, making it feel much, much colder. Since we're only about 15 miles or so (as the crow flies) from the relatively warm Atlantic Ocean, it doesn't get as cold here as it does in The Heartland. But for us, these are cold temperatures, indeed - especially for November!

So I headed out to the Jeep at lunchtime to see what the bands were like. I have heard so many reports of them "hopping" lately, that I wanted to see for myself.  My little Li-Ion battery packs seems to dislike the cold as much as I do.  So much for leaving them in the car all morning. When I fired up the KX3, I was getting a reading of only 11V from each pack, about 1.3V less that I would expect. Even batteries don't like to play in the cold!

But with the KX3 only putting out 3 Watts as a result, I still managed to snare a few QSOs on the higher bands:

ZD8O - Ascension Island - 10 Meters
G4MLW - Ian in York, England on 17 Meters
PJ2/K8ND - Curacao on 15 Meters

Not bad - considering. Even though I sat INSIDE the car (engine off) for my session today, I still maintain that it was good practice for the "Freeze Your Butt Off" sprint in February!

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