Sunday, June 06, 2021

The bands were not the greatest today

 I set up for the Cookie Crumble Contest in the backyard this afternoon. I lashed the Jackite pole to a support and used the PAR ENDFEDZ 10-20-40. I set the KX3, battery and Bulldog key on the patio table under the umbrella.

After filling a stainless steel travel tumbler with ice cold water, I got down to business.

The bands I chose to operate on, 40 and 20 Meters, were less than stellar. I called CQ to no effect, so the stations I did work were gotten via "hunt and pounce". In all, I worked four Cookie stations and four POTA stations. I spent a little under 4 hours behind the key with frequent indoor breaks to cool off. The loudest station I heard all day was Rick NK9G on 20 Meters. When I first heard him and worked him, he was 559. But wouldn't you know it? ...... about an hour later, he was 599 +++++ !

The bright side of the day was that I found out there's a POTA Spotter app for Android phones. I downloaded it and sure enough, it led me to the four POTA station that I worked. I also discovered that I can set up CW POTA stations as a trigger on the HamAlert app as well. So any time a CW POTA station is spotted on the DX Clusters, it will trigger an SMS message and let me know the Call and Frequency. Neat!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

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