Lemoine Point Conservation Area...

It was a nice day today, the forecasted rain didn't arrive until well after supper tonight.  The propagation numbers didn't look too good though, and I thought I might pass on the chance to do a POTA activation, but loaded up the van anyway and drove to Lemoine Point Conservation Area.

This mornings propagation numbers were:  SFI=74, SN=0, A Index=7, and K Index=3.  As well as these poor numbers, we also had some extremely bad QSB....to be honest, the bad QSB has been around constantly for about 2 weeks!!

I did expect the place to be crowded this morning, but the parking lot was empty when I arrived.   

First in the log was a CW contact with Bill, K4NYM, in Florida.  The QSB took him out so fast I didn't get a chance to give him my park number.  The rest of my 13 contacts were all SSB, and took a bit of doing given the deep QSB.

It was difficult enough making contacts given the QSB we had, but on top of that I had several cases today of stations repeatedly shouting their callsigns over the station I was in a QSO with.  Some operators seem to have no patience at all these days. Needless to say, if you were calling over other stations I didn't work you.

Radio today, as usual, was my KX3, and the antenna was a 20m Hamstick mounted on the roof of the van with a 5" mag-mount.