Got on the air today at about 3pm local time, I was working from home today and things were a little light so I fired up the HW-8 to see what was happening on 40m. Band conditions are still pretty bad at this time of day.
My first contact was Tom KB3CVO over in PA, already had him in the log but he gave me a 339 and said my signal was a little drifty. We did the SKCC exchange and I moved on to Jim KI4I/M as he was driving through Kansas. Jim lives in Tennessee, and was a Seebee in the US Navy back in 1968. We traded exchanges and all that, then QRN and QSB pretty much ended the QSO in it's tracks. Jim if you read this, thank you for your military service!
About a half hour later I got Glen WD5CNC down in Arkansas. Glenn was running a Yaesu FT 450 and was sounding pretty good here. QSb and QRN was getting bad...my 559 fell to a 529 by the end of the QSO. This is a new state and puts me at 24 so far. I'm still behind, so I will get back on the air this evening and see what I can scare up.
Tomorrow is radio club meeting, 8AM on a Saturday morning....yikes. The Midstate Amateur Radio Club is from near Franklin Indiana, they've been around over 25 years and they have a great group of folks as members. i will be taking a friend of mine with me, he's not licensed yet but we're working on it.
So glad I was able to get back on the air....between 23:00Z and 00:00Z 40m opened up a little bit and I managed to pick up three more states! Solar indexes still look bad but the band is starting to stretch out and go a little longer.
First up was Glen NK1N in New Jersey, another new one! Glen is an SKCC member so we traded SKCC numbers, RST's and QTH's. Glen is big into UHF/VHF rovering and working the birds! Check him out on QRZ.
Next was Myrt N1GKE in Rhode Island, another new one! Always happy to get RI and DE under my belt... Myrt and I traded RST, SKCC, and QTH information and he gave me a 599. The SSB QRM was getting bad, we were operating on 7118 Khz.
Tom W4OIS down in South Carolina was my fourth new state of the day! Tom is also an SKCC member, so we traded the usual stuff. Tom is a navy veteran, and collects arrow heads, check him out on QRZ.
Dave KB3MOW was another SKCCer from Pennsylvania. We were also on 7118 Khz and the SSB was pretty rough. The HW-8 has little filtering so you just have to "listen around it". Good QSO to make!
Foster W4AZA from Alabama was making his third CW contact tonight. We exchanged the basic info, hes not in SKCC, and tried to carry on a conversation but the QRM was just too much, so we had to cut it short.
That's it for tonight, mailman dropped the ball and brought no QSL cards.
73 de KB9BVN
So glad I was able to get back on the air....between 23:00Z and 00:00Z 40m opened up a little bit and I managed to pick up three more states! Solar indexes still look bad but the band is starting to stretch out and go a little longer.
First up was Glen NK1N in New Jersey, another new one! Glen is an SKCC member so we traded SKCC numbers, RST's and QTH's. Glen is big into UHF/VHF rovering and working the birds! Check him out on QRZ.
Next was Myrt N1GKE in Rhode Island, another new one! Always happy to get RI and DE under my belt... Myrt and I traded RST, SKCC, and QTH information and he gave me a 599. The SSB QRM was getting bad, we were operating on 7118 Khz.
Tom W4OIS down in South Carolina was my fourth new state of the day! Tom is also an SKCC member, so we traded the usual stuff. Tom is a navy veteran, and collects arrow heads, check him out on QRZ.
Dave KB3MOW was another SKCCer from Pennsylvania. We were also on 7118 Khz and the SSB was pretty rough. The HW-8 has little filtering so you just have to "listen around it". Good QSO to make!
Foster W4AZA from Alabama was making his third CW contact tonight. We exchanged the basic info, hes not in SKCC, and tried to carry on a conversation but the QRM was just too much, so we had to cut it short.
That's it for tonight, mailman dropped the ball and brought no QSL cards.
73 de KB9BVN
No comments:
Post a Comment