The good and the bad

This weekend was great!

My daughter graduated from High School on Saturday and will be on her way to college this Fall to study Nursing. It's wonderful to see how our baby girl Cara has grown into a competent young woman, full of promise and potential. I can't wait to watch her soar!

This weekend was not so great!

Since Saturday was so busy, that left me with only Sunday to get on the air and hunt for Museum Ships. The bands were pretty crappy and I ended up working only one, W5T the Battleship Texas. I snagged them with 5 Watts on 20 Meters. The only other ship I did hear was NS7DD, the USS Turner Joy based in Eugene, Oregon.  Even pumping up the KXPA100 to 95 Watts didn't get the job done. I just couldn't make the contact. They were 449/559 at best and the QSB was horrendous, and they eventually faded into oblivion, as the band changed for good.

There were probably a ton of ships on SSB, but since I have the Log4OM cluster set for CW only, there wasn't much in the way of MSW spots on Sunday. Oh well.

Next Sunday is the Cookie Crumble Contest. I am very much looking forward to that. The past two years, I was not able to devote my full attention to it because of other commitments. This year, I have kept my calendar open so that I can devote more time to it. Now, all I need is for the weather, both solar AND terrestrial to cooperate!

Speaking of the weather, last evening we had another bout of thunderstorms. We were under a severe thunderstorm watch until 10:00 PM, local time. The storms didn't get severe, in that there were no damaging winds or hail, but there was a lot of rain and thunder and lightning. The Acu-Rite lightning detector recorded 199 strikes within a 20 mile radius from about 8:00 to 10:00 PM, local time. As soon as that little guy made its first chirp, I was in the basement disconnecting coax. It started detecting lightning strikes way before I was even able to notice them through the windows.  I think this is going to turn out to be one of my better investments.

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