The weather last night and today was superb, comfortably warm, with a light breeze and blue skies. Great weather for being outside playing radio.
Propagation wise it was good on Saturday until 1530 UTC, after that contacts were very hard to get as the conditions started to deteriorate. The numbers were: SFI=202, SN=197, A Index=5, and the K Index=1. However, there was very deep QSB on the bands which certainly didn't help me.
One of the issues I'm finding here in the parks around Kingston is the fact that they are so busy in the summer. I know we're a tourist town, and it's good for business if the town is busy, but it gets difficult to find a parking spot in the parks unless you're there at the crack of dawn. Because they are busy it's also difficult to put up a wire antenna, I certainly don't want a lawsuit because some person, not watching where they're going, tripped over my radials or coax.
As my regular readers will know, my go-to antennas - for a long time - has been hamsticks, mounted on my truck's roof with a 5" mag-mount. I'm always surprised at how well they do, especially with 10w SSB. Last night, for a change, I dug out my Slidewinder coil with the 9.5' Buddipole whip, and used that. While it makes changing bands very easy, and it works very well, I didn't notice any significant improvement over my hamsticks.
We'll see how they do tomorrow....if the bands are usable again.
Stay Safe Out There!!