My antennas, that is.
After yesterday afternoon and last night, I expected to wake up to find my W3EDP at ground level and my Butternut HF9V bent at 90 degrees somewhere along its length. In retrospect, my fears were probably silly as my antennas withstood Hurricane Sandy with nary a whimper, but ...........
Last evening, as I lay in bed, struggling to fall asleep, the winds were howling, and I do mean HOWLING. Not an exaggeration, they were dong their best to imitate a freight train passing underneath our windows. But, thanks be to God, both antennas are still up, working, functional and never the worse for wear. Dodged another bullet - whew!
I find myself in somewhat of a quandary. I e-mailed my buddy, Bob W3BBO about this. I see all the posts on Facebook about the Heard Island DXpedition. All these people seem to have worked them on so many bands and with so many different modes.
I just can't bring myself to even bother trying.
It's not that I don't need them. Working VK0EK would be an ATNO for me. Never worked Heard Island before, It just seems, that for some reason or other, I just don't feel like jumping into the fray. On the other hand, Yosemite National Park was on 20 Meter SSB last night, I spent close to half an hour unsuccessfully trying to bust that pileup, before they faded into oblivion. So it's not that my competitive instinct has disappeared. Not sure what my problem is.
I'm sure whatever it is, that like everything else, it's cyclical and one day I'll be jumping into the DXpedition pileups with both feet again.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Larry,
ReplyDeleteWait until later in the dxpedition when they are begging for contacts and work them on 30 meters. You may be kicking yourself a few years from now if you don't. It's been 20 years since anybody has been there and it may be another 20 years before it's activated again. Dave N1IX
If you can hear Heard Island, I suggest you try. So far, I've only had one 15 minute window where I could hear them. Then I had to go to work....
ReplyDeleteI know exactly how you feel. It's the nihillist in us that says "I'm as far from him as he is from me - what's the big fuss about?" Also, why would any rational person sit there, competing with people who repeat their callsigns 20 times a minute, for an hour, hours, or days?
ReplyDeleteIn the end, you know your signal can get there, with ease. So 'getting' the DX or not is really just a question of whether you can somehow get heard amongst the throngs who think the DX code of conduct is just a total joke that doesn't apply to them.
So, relax!