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Thursday, January 13, 2011

Propagation - she is a weird thing!

After my crappy session as 80 Meter Fox the other night, I began to do what I always (irrationally) do.  I began to think there MUST be something wrong with either the rig or antennas.  I always seem to consider band conditions last, crazily thinking the fault has to lay with my equipment or me, somehow.

Today, my stupid fears were quelled somewhat.  Although the bands weren't what you'd describe as "viral" with activity, there were some stations to be heard and worked.   I did manage to work LY13A on 17 Meters this morning; and on my first call at that.  So if 5 Watts made it to Lithuania from New Jersey,  things must be working right!

For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the LY13 calls, I'll suggest a quick mosey-on-over to John AE5X's blog, where he has a post devoted to them - click here.  I wasn't sure what they were all about either; but one Amateur Radio rule that I remember from my Novice days is "Work now, worry later!".  Meaning, if you hear something unusual that you're not familiar with; but propagation and conditions favor you - work it while you can and figure out later who it was!   I got them in the log and thanks to John, read all about it after the fact.  There were also quite a few LY13 stations on 20 Meters, but they had bigger pileups that I couldn't seem to bust.

Later in the afternoon, I worked K6JSS/KH6.  This week is Hawaii's turn to host the K6JSS callsign for the big Golden Anniversary Celebration of QRP-ARCI.  I heard KH6MX calling CQ on 21.060 MHz at 20:07 UTC.  It wasn't a ragchew by any means; but I did manage to get Max to copy my callsign and the 559 report that I gave him.  There was lots of QSB, but his signal did actually achieve 579 status before I QSY'ed to another band.

Lastly, on 40 Meters, I managed a very short QSO with Tom Mitchell WY3H, co-founder of the North American QRP CW Club and NAQCC Number One himself!  I garnered a 229 and Tom was only 449 here; but we exchanged greetings and such.

Now off to make some dinner; and maybe I'll get some time to get on a little bit more tonight.

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

3 comments:

  1. Hi Larry,

    I see you're putting your surgery time to good use. Interesting contacts. Sure wish I could get on the 17 meter band for some of that DX. Glad you're coming along well.

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  2. I was hearing Ca, Fl and Mi calls on the 10-10 net on my way to work this afternoon. They couldn't hear me though. Running a HR-2510.

    Neal KC4YCM

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  3. Good morning Larry, good to see your recovery is coming along well. I heard K6JSS on the weekend from CT. It was on 80 meters and unfortunately I am not good to go on 80 here. As for LY13A I am going to trip over to John's blog now and do some reading.

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