Times R a changing with the way the sun is preforming these days. I know we have all wanted the sunspots to go up along with the flux numbers......BUT..........what is up with the solar flares!!! As a wise man once told me with the good comes the bad as well. Sunday afternoon I fired up
DXlabs and on the cluster was S573DX from Slovenia. He was booming in at around S7 to S9 and I had my K3 at around 5 watts and so began my effort to contact him. There was a pileup and as it goes with QRP you have to let the big guns get their turn and then you can fit your call in the cracks! I was waiting for my
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Back to the K2 build |
opportunity (mind you I still was throwing in my call along side the "big guns"...you never know) and then S573DX went from S7-S9 so S...NOTHING!! In the blink of an eye he was just above the noise level even the APF was not able to dig him out of the noise floor. So goes the conditions when the sun grumpy! There are other projects around the shack to keep me busy...such as
my K2 build. There was not much time for radio this week as Julie has relivitves coming in from England next weekend. They will be staying with us for 3 weeks so it was time to get some rooms ready for them and do some needed house cleaning as well.
VERY frustrating weekend. I was not able to work one ship, one special event station or one station from the AL QSO Party; all due to NLS. (Northern Latitudes Syndrome….) Also, seems 20 meters was the only band not completely dead, so everyone congregated there.
Thus, I spent the weekend catching up on QSL cards. Even went up on 2 meters for a while and met a few newbies.
Good evening Bill, thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment. Yes this was a weekend to catch up on the radio things that have been put off for some time. There is another weekend coming and maybe….just maybe things will be a bit better.
Mike
When I saw the K index, I knew making contacts would be very rough to nearly impossible. I spent the weekend reworking a MFJ 3 Amp Power supply, installing Power Pole where there was none.
Branching out a little bit with my posts here, I took some video shots of the progress. I’ll combine that with the ‘still shots’ and post the results here when the power supply is done and the video is processed.
73 de AA1IK
Ernest Gregoire
Good evening Ernest, yes things are in the dumpers regarding solar conditions…but… the hobby is great in that you can always find ways to spend hobby time. Looking forward to the posts and the video as well.
Mike
Hey, we’re just along for the ride. Ya’ can’t fool mother nature!
In spite of the lousy HF conditions, I did have fun on 6 meters yesterday evening… Es to northern California and Oregon.
Where there is a will, there is a way!
73,
Karl
N7DMA
DM42
Good morning Karl, I have been reading lots about 6m and how during the spring and this crazy weather = great conditions. It’s all about having fun thats for sure.
Mike