Not much going on, indeed! Perhaps everyone's getting ready for NEXT weekend's big CQ WW DX contest?
There's only one this weekend:
LZ DX Contest - http://lzdx.bfra.org/rulesen.html
EDIT: It was pointed out to me by Jeff KE9V (Thanks, Jeff!) that CQ WW DX does occur THIS weekend. I guess I was fooled by this on the WA7BNM Contest Calendar:
Which Bruce had posted on the Perpetual Calendar. BTW, rules are at https://www.cqww.com/rules.htm
And when I opened the link, I saw this:
And there are no Special Event stations on the ARRL calendar for this weekend. (And NOW that makes sense! Although, it still kind of doesn't as most Special Event stations are SSB, anyway) Is everyone in the USA too busy getting ready for Thanksgiving? Maybe so. So there's not much to report on as far as action on the bands this weekend, but you can bet your bottom dollar there will be plenty of POTA and SOTA activity, as always. (DON'T bet your bottom dollar, at least not in the CW portions.)
Oh, this is NOT a good way to start off on a Friday!
Last night was the 80 Meter QRP Fox Hunt. I had a long day at work and was debating whether to head down to the shack, or upstairs to bed. Curiosity got the better of me and I headed to the shack. I was curious because the two Foxes were Tim KR0U in CO and Randy NC4RT in NC. I worked both of them last week during my stint as the 80 Meter Fox, so I thought I'd stand a good chance of repeating this week.
Randy was easy. He was 579 and I didn't have to listen for his Hounds to find him. I found him right off the bat, tuned VFO B about 1 kHz up and worked him on my first try. When I looked at his Fox log this morning, I saw that I was the second Hound to nab his pelt! I'm not sure I've ever been that quick at working a Fox before.
Tim - he was only 339 when I worked him last week and he was 009 (if there is such a thing) last night. I found his Hounds and this time tuned about 1 kHz down, and heard nothing. I was going to just sit in the chair for a while hoping propagation would change and that Tim would become audible. Then at 9:30 PM (02:30 UTC) 3RN, the 3rd Call District Area Net came on frequency, blasting away, and that was it for me. I shut everything down and headed off to sleep.
When I had a spare moment this morning, I looked at Tim's Fox Log and QSOs to the Northeast were sparse.
From the K4OAQ live logging map, you can see that Tim got into the Virginia area and had one Upstate New York QSO, but nothing towards the NYC Metropolitan area.
And this is Tim's Reverse Beacon Network Map from last night, which I just looked up.
And RBN is reporting that Tim sat on 3.5574 MHz, so I was not too far off. I was listening primarily at about 3.5569 MHz, but I was carefully tuning both up and down a bit, so if Tim was audible at all, I certainly should have heard him.
Since next week is Thanksgiving week, there are no "regular" 40 or 80 Meter Fox Hunts. Those two nights have a 160 Meter "Foxtravaganza" scheduled, which is basically a free-for-all. All Foxes and alternates can get on 160 Meters to call "CQ Fox" to see who they can hear and work. It's tempting to get on to see how the MFJ-1982 might work on 160 Meters. I'm not sure if I can even get a match. I know the HF9V will work on 160 Meters, because I've done it before.
I will tell you one thing of which I am certain right now. Come 9:00 PM on Thursday, Thanksgiving night, W2LJ will be sawing wood. That's guaranteed after a big day of cooking and having family over.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
No comments:
Post a Comment