Personal Best

I know myself all too well. I had a great time as a 40 Meter Fox last night, but now I'm paying the consequences. I knew ahead of time that following the hunt, I'd be on an adrenaline high - and I was. I was stoked, awake, and I wasn't able to nod off until about 1:00 AM.

Today, the walking dead probably feel more alive than I do.

I have to honestly say, though, that I approached the hunt last night with trepidation. I tried to catch a catnap after dinner, but my phone kept chiming with all kinds of geomagnetic alerts. The last one came about a half hour before the starting bell to tell me the k index was up to 4. I went to the propagation box at the bottom of the blog to see that night time conditions on 40 Meters would only be "fair". Uh-oh!

But whatever the sun was doing didn't seem to have too much of an effect on me. I ended up with a personal best of 55 QSOs, two of which were dupes. One was K9TA, which was just probably an insurance QSO on his part, and the other was NX1K, Mark, who came back to me a second time, but with lower power - 2 Watts. That's the QSO that goes into the record book.

Here's the Reverse Beacon Network map from last night:

While I didn't hear anyone from the West Coast, the other Fox, Randy NC4RT, did work Don NK6A. The farthest west I was able to hear and work were KS, CO, TX and OK.  The map shows that skimmers picked me up on the West coast, but my signal was probably below noise level which only computer ears could hear.

I kept switching back and forth between the MF-1982 and my Butternut HF9V. The vertical allowed me to hear those western stations much better than the wire. I was glad to have both antennas. 

Again, thanks to all the Hounds who worked me. I know there were many out there that I couldn't quite dig out of the noise. I thought I heard John K4BAI a couple of times, but he was not loud enough to know for sure that it was him. The mind can play tricks on you , if you allow it.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Old habits die hard

Even though it was a long, tough day at work, and anywhere from 9:00 to 9:30 PM seems to be my bedtime anymore - I gave in and joined in on the inaugural session for the 2018/2019 Winter Fox Hunt Season. I had a successful evening, which of course, is now going to encourage me to participate in the rest of the season.

40 Meters seemed to be in decent shape and Jerry N9AW was the first Fox that I found. He was the "upper" Fox, located between 7.040 and 7.050 MHz. He had a decent signal from the get-go. I called him a few times before he worked me, but eventually made it into his logbook.

Mac NN4K was a bit harder. I heard some familiar call signs that I knew were hounds and tuned down 1 KHz. Mac was indeed there, but weak - ESP weak. I could tell he was there and that was about it. So I hunkered down and kept listening. Slowly his signal rose, and he also changed from working split to working simplex. I threw out my call, thinking it was going to take a long time to work him, if at all. Much to my surprise, I actually heard my call sign come back to me. We completed the exchange and Fox #2 was in the log!

My "nemesis" was there again, using his scatter gun approach, but the tight filters on the KX3 really helped tune him out. Thursday night is the 80 Meter hunt. Now my appetite is whetted enough to give that a go and see what happens. Dave N1IX is one of the Foxes. He's a superb operator, "A1" in every sense - AND he is located in New Hampshire, which should be very do-able for 80 Meters.

I'm actually kind of looking forward to this, now.

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