Put 'er in the books!

What a surprise! I woke up to a Sunday morning miracle! The weather prognosticators were off by a bit. It was sunny and very humid, and a quick gander on the weather radar showed no signs of imminent storms, so it looked like a "portable" Skeeter Hunt operation was going to be a distinct possibility.

Over the next few hours, the sun and clouds would alternate, so I decided to "86" going to Cotton Street Park and would work backyard portable instead. I figured that if it did start to downpour, I wouldn't get that drenched moving equipment into the house from the backyard, and I could move it quickly, if needed. I started setting up at Noon - a whole entire hour ahead of time. Overkill ...... right? Wrong, W2LJ, DEAD wrong!

Once again the Jackite mast was giving me fits. The ground was way wet from Saturday night's rain and my new tent pegs were too short to get a good grip of some dry soil beneath the surface and kept pulling out. The mast fell over twice and I could feel my BP rising due to the frustration. Time was passing quickly, and I couldn't remember where I had tossed my longer tent pegs, so I decided to use my drive on mast holder, instead. Using an empty grill propane tank and a 20 lb bag of birdseed for ballast, it worked perfectly, albeit later than I had anticipated. I had stubbornly futzed around with the short tent pegs entirely too long. 

The only challenge using the drive on mast holder here was making sure it was as level as possible on grassy ground.

But in the process, I learned a valuable lesson which I can store away in the memory banks. If the ground is hard and dry, the shorties will work better as they are easier to remove from rock hard soil. If the ground is wet and soft, the longer tent pegs are a must. This was the view of the set up mast, looking east towards the back border of the yard. It stayed rock solid for the entirety of the Skeeter Hunt,. Satisfied that there would be no more antenna mishaps, I eventually turned around and sat with my back to it, so I could keep my eyes laser focused for any dark clouds coming in from the west.

I ended up getting started about 15 minutes late, which in the grand scheme of things was no big deal. I had my normal set up going with some twists. I used my 12 Volt LiFe PO battery for the first time, and I went with the American Morse DCP paddle mounted on the Velamints container which I had talked about a few posts earlier. it proved to work well. The only time my code got sloppy was when I made a few mistakes towards the end of the Hunt from being tired. No mistakes because I held it incorrectly and sent extraneous dits or dahs. And of course, my mistakes were made when trading exchanges with John K4BAI. Nothing like getting all flustered like a school boy who confronts his favorite MLB baseball player!

Dinosaur that I am, I still paper log. No way that I can manage a computer and paddles simultaneously!

It wasn't very hot, only in the mid 80s, but it was very humid. That stainless steel insulated water bottle was a lifesaver. I didn't have to go running into the house for a cool hydration break when one was needed.

Propagation wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible either. I was hearing a lot more stations than I did during FOBB. 20 Meters seemed to be the go to band for the day, and I'm pretty sure most of my QSOs happened there. I did make two contacts on 15 Meters, Gene N5GW in MS and Perry N5PJ in OK. 15 Meters gets the ribbon for the farthest QSOs. I wish there had been more activity there. I tried calling CQ for a while on 10 Meters with no joy, and that's a shame. A look at the Reverse Beacon Network after the event showed that my signal was getting out to Germany at a pretty decent dB level - double figures, so I would have been heard if anyone had been listening.

40 Meters proved once again to be the band for close in Skeeters and I worked NJ, PA, NY and MD all on 40 Meters. The signals were much more robust on 40 than they were on either 20 or 15. I really like 40 Meters, it's probably my favorite band. The shame is that during events such as the Skeeter Hunt or the Flight of the Bumblebees, 40 Meters is often ignored until late in the event after 20 Meters seems to have dried up.

My strategy is to change bands often. When I've worked 20 Meters for a bit I'll go to another band to see what's up there. Propagation changes and when I go back to 20 Meters after a while, I'll hear stations that I hadn't heard before. Maybe they started late, or maybe the skip zone moved. Whatever, it's a strategy that works for me.

With about 15 minutes to go to the end of the Hunt, I started tearing down and packing up as the skies were starting to look ominous. I could have stayed until 5:00 as it turned out. The deluge, and I mean THE DELUGE didn't start until 6:20 PM local time. In about a 1/2 hour to 40 minutes we got over 3/4 of an inch of rain. I'm so glad it held off! I left my house at about 6:15 to drive up to the filling station to get gas in the car for the week, and the streets were bone dry, Halfway to the gas station, about a 1/2 mile from home, I ran into a wall of rain that was coming down so hard that I had to put my windshield wipers onto "fast" mode. It was creepy because I saw the wall of rain heading towards me. It was moving faster toward me than I was heading toward it! I hate to think of how badly my Ham gear would have gotten soaked if that had happened during the Hunt. I don't think being under the patio umbrella would have helped much.

The obligatory selfie for the bonus points - had to get the Skeeter Hunt logo in there! 

When all was said and done, I had finished the day with 37 QSOs. 31 Skeeters and 6 - 5 Watt stations. I don't remember off the top of my head, but last night I had counted somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 to 20 different States. I had set a goal to make 40 QSOs for the day and fell three short - not bad. For the heck of it, I had decided to take voltage measurements on this new battery pre and post Hunt. I started the day at 13.4 Volts and ended the day at 13.4 Volts! There was a lot of calling "CQ BZZ" yesterday, so for the voltage to remain rock solid leaves me impressed.  I have a gut feeling that this battery, fully charged, will get me and the KX3 through all of Field Day by itself next year.

Once again, thanks to all who participated in the NJQRP Skeeter Hunt. This event is nothing without all of you - you all are the wind that lifts the Skeeter's wings. My part in this is miniscule compared to all you getting on the air and making it the success that it is. THANK YOU and the results will become available on Monday, September 2nd, so you have a couple of weeks to get your log summaries in. My inbox is already flooded and I''ll get to them in due course. PLEASE REMEMBER, if you don't get a confirmation e-mail from me (within a couple of days) that means I didn't get your results, so please try again. For those of you who already sent in your summaries and there are a lot, please give me three or four days to get them on the spreadsheet. For the time being, I'm still part of the everyday workforce so my time for this is limited.

See you all again next year - so save the date - Sunday, August 17th, 2025!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!