80 Meter Fox Hunt and the weekend

Last night was my first stint as a Fox in 8 years! I went back to the QRP Fox Hunt webpage and was looking at the previous seasons. 2015 was the last time I served as a Fox. I completed applications for both the 2016 and 2017 seasons and was relegated to "Alternate" status. I gave up after that. Alternates very rarely get called and I pretty much figured out that I was not considered to be "up to snuff". I guess that due to the shortage of Foxes this year, my status has changed to "good enough".

Anyway, last night was a blast. The final log will show 48 QSOs after removing one duplicate.  I started off at 3.566 MHz, listening from 1 to 2 KHz up. I lost a good 10 minutes of precious time having to QSY when two different section nets came on the frequency unannounced and just took over. I had a nice rhythm going up until then. Once they finished, I was able to go back and establish another nice rhythm, but I lost probably about 10 - 12 QSOs in the process. QSB and QRN didn't help matters, either, making me ask for fills which ate up precious time The W3EDP was the star performer of the night. I switched over to the Butternut once or twice, but saw no real gain in receive quality, so "I stuck with what brung me to the dance." I went simplex for the last 1/2 hour of the hunt when I did not hear anyone calling me at the upper frequencies anymore,

According to the Reverse Beacon Network, this is where I was being heard last night. I did work stations in Iowa, Colorado, Ontario and Florida as well, which do not show on the map.

Here's the weekend's goings on:

Contests:

CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW - http://www.cq160.com/rules.htm

REF Contest, CW - https://concours.r-e-f.org/reglements/actuels/reg_cdfhfdx.pdf

UBA DX Contest, SSB - https://www.uba.be/en/hf/contest-rules/uba-dx-contest

Winter Field Day - https://www.winterfieldday.com/

Classic Exchange, Phone - http://www.classicexchange.org/

Winter Field day is the biggie. A great idea as an emergency can happen any time of the year - but Winter Field Day is not a W2LJ thing. Winter itself, is not a W2LJ thing. God bless all of you who are going to venture forth outdoors this weekend for WFD. It's supposed to be warm, but very soggy here.

Special Event Stations:

01/27/2024 | Discovery of Gold in California

Jan 27-Jan 29, 1700Z-0100Z, AG6AU, Coloma, CA. El Dorado County ARC. 7.248 14.248 21.348 28.348. QSL. El Dorado County ARC, PO Box 451, Placerville, CA 95667. https://edcarc.net

01/27/2024 | Winter Field Day with BARC

Jan 27-Jan 28, 1900Z-1859Z, W5BCS, Bryan, TX. Bryan Amateur Radio Club. 7.250 14.270. QSL. Bryan Amateur Radio Club, PO Box 4442, Bryan, TX 77805. https://w5bcs.radio

I hope you all enjoy the weekend! I hope to work some POTA stations this weekend and maybe wind up with a WARC band rag chew or two.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!