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!

I love stuff like this!

 Definitely from the "Don't believe everything you see on the internet" file.

In all my 67 years of living in New Jersey and in the some 45 years of paying attention to this stuff as an Amateur Radio operator, I have never seen aurora in New Jersey, ever!

I think it would take an almost Carrington type event for aurora to be seen this far south of the Arctic Circle. And if aurora was actually able to be seen over my state, then invariably it would be cloudy or overcast and that would "86" the opportunity.

This latest geomagnetic storm was intense, but it didn't shut down HF communications - not by a long shot. I was able to make contacts on 20 and 30 Meters yesterday afternoon, and the St. Max Net on 75 Meters last night went exceptionally well. I was able to hear everyone who participated and that's not often the case. Yeah, the band was a little noisier than it has been, but that's probably due more to the fact that we're approaching Spring atmospheric conditions. 

In addition, I'm not sure where places like earth.com get their information. The aurora maps that I saw that were published by NOAA yesterday didn't even show NY State as a possibility. And as far as I'm concerned, I think the best chance of me EVER being able to see aurora would be if a very severe geomagnetic storm occurred while we are up at Lake George some summer from now.

Aurora visible from Alabama? Maybe I'm dead wrong, but I would think that if that were the case, then the skies over New Jersey would be a spectacular light show!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!