Something else from the weekend.

Sunday was sunny; but chilly. That didn't stop me from doing a bit of antenna maintenance. I noticed my Butternut was not truly vertical, anymore. Some shrubbery from my neighbor's yard had grown tall and had kind of "pushed" my vertical out of its way. A branch cutter took care of that, PDQ. Somehow, I doubt my neighbor even notices his greenery is hanging over onto my property.

Last Thursday, another neighbor's (on the opposite side of our block) garage started on fire. The garage was a total loss, but fortunately, it was detached from the house. The vinyl siding on the house melted a in a few spots from the intense heat; but was otherwise untouched. I went to Cara's room to take a peek out her window, which offers the best view of the damage. It was then that I noticed the W3EDP was a bit droopy. The wire got tangled up by something.  Using the same branch cutter, I was able to lift the wire out and past the offending snare, and it was back to full height.

Which leads me to last night and the ARS Spartan Sprint. Lifting the W3EDP past whatever it was caught on seemed to make a difference in the noise level I was experiencing.  The QRN is still there, but is a bit less, now.  I managed to work three stations in about 30 minutes. I did not hear many Spartan Sprinters - only Don K3RLL, John K4BAI and Mark WB9FHK. Don by far was the loudest, but not at first.  He was very weak from the beginning, but over time his signal rose in strength and he became the loudest of the three.

After about 40 minutes, I noticed myself nodding off a bit and threw the big switch and hit the sack. Three more QSOs in the log for 2020.

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