Friday, December 08, 2017

In keeping with the Season

and the band conditions during our diminishing sun spot cycle, I will post a graphic that I saw on Facebook, courtesy of Jim Stephens NX8Z:


Last night's 80 Meter QRP Fox hunt was a tough go.  I finally managed to nab Randy NC4RT  in North Carolina for a single pelt.  Dave K5IX in Texas was a mere whisper, although my relatively close by neighbor Steve WX2S managed to squeak in a QSO in the closing minutes of the hunt.

QSB was tough, rapid and fluttery, and there was a low, whooshing noise across a part of the band that made things very difficult.  I'm not sure whether that was just local noise or some kind of over the horizon radar; but it was not pleasant to deal with.  I thank God for the Butternut, as it allowed me to snag the pelt.  Going against conventional wisdom, the vertical was giving me less noise than the horizontal wire!

Unfortunately, I think we have a few more years of this before things get better.  Maybe Santa will bring us some sun spots if we're all good Amateur Radio ops?

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least1

1 comment:

  1. Spent a few hours on 10m for the ARRL 10m contest.

    I have never heard conditions on 10m so bad. I didn't even hear any South American stations on yesterday afternoon.

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