Rough Night

Listening to the Middlesex County Chat Group Net last night, the participants were told that our friend who was in distress on Sunday night, did indeed experience a stroke. He is in the hospital in ICU and is comfortable and is doing OK. The prognosis for long term effects, if any, is not known at this time. Hopefully, the quick action taken by net members will mitigate any long term lasting effects.

The 40 Meter Fox Hunt last night was a toughie. The two Foxes were Earl N8SS in Michigan and Don NK6A in California.  I thought NJ to MI would be rather easy and NJ to CA almost impossible on 40 Meters. Again, as so often, I was proven wrong.

I did find Earl's pack baying rather quickly, but I could barely pull his signal out as there was a rather loud rag chew taking place almost on top of him. Hoping that would end some time soon, I decided to go looking for Don.

Again, I found the pack (with a little more effort than it took to find Earl's pack) and started listening about 1 kHz down. I could just make Don out, but with a judicious narrowing of the KX3's filters and turning on the Auto Peak Frequency option, I was able to hear Don more clearly. But then, wouldn't you know it? A CQ'er came on frequency! I didn't pay attention to his call sign, but his signal had more chirp on it than a canary in a bird cage! 

I was not about to listen to that for too long, so I went back down to try and work Earl. The rag chewers disappeared and I was able to hear Earl. I didn't need the APF feature, but I did keep the filtering tight and finally logged him at 02:33 UTC.

Back up the dial to find Don NK6A again. This time Ol' Chirpie was gone and with the same filtering and the APF turned on again, I nabbed Don's pelt at 03:01 UTC. I listened for a bit longer to let the energy of the Hunt drain away a bit before hitting the sack.

Once again, my predictions were thwarted. I did work Earl, but it took a lot more effort than I thought it would, and I did work Don, which I thought was going to be impossible. I guess if one has to be wrong, at least this was not a bad way to be wrong.

Before heading upstairs to bed, I broke out my phone, got onto the RBN site and took a look at where Earl and Don were being heard.  As you can see, even though conditions may have been less than ideal for the Foxes, the skimmers seem to indicate they were being heard well.

Earl N8SS's map

Don NK6A's map

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!