Not really.
But it's the first time I've taking my radio to the field and not made
one single contact. Albeit I got off to a slow start by arriving at my
favorite radio site at 4:15 PM so LAITF & TAC were already going. It
took me about 15 minutes to get the antenna up and setup.
20m/4:30 PM - Signals we're very weak and very FEW of them! I tried
answering a few CQs (W7 and K4?) but nada!! Hmm... Changed out the old
AA-Lithium batteries in the KX1...it doubled my RF to 2.3W(20m) up
from <1W so figured this has gotta help but still no luck! OK, it must
be the antenna. I found another limb higher up and slung the fishing
weight (ala the David/Goliath method) up and over. After several tries
raised my inverted vee up another 10'. Now that's got to help things
for sure?!
Before seeing how things improved I decided to break for dinner (a
sandwitch) and watch the 'boys' play on the rocks. Getting back to the
KX1 I tried 20m again and still weak sigs and few on QRP watering hole
14.060? I did heard stronger sigs down the band so it must have been
open? 40m was heavy QRN and few QRP signals as well but same as far as
hearing other QRO stns? Later on 20m I started hearing EU DX stns as
the evening wore on. The only thing I can figure is that I missed the
short skip propogation by getting on late on 20 and 40 their was such
heavy QRN it masked the qrp sigs to no avail? So I was skunked!!Oh
well...?
I QSYed to the audio frequencies and practiced my harmonica for
awhile. The only problem with that is the goats think I'm calling 'em
for dinner. Cause I always feed them just after I play awhile. So I
dug out their grain treat while being mobbed by goats and then all was
quiet again including the QRP HFactivity as I gave one final listen to
20/40. I jumped on 30m a bit to see if I could raise SOMEONE but guess
I was just RF challenged for this outing! (sigh)
All in all it was a great goat/QRP escape. Steve/n0tu
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/goatman/
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