It was still fairly cold when I left to do a POTA activation this morning at VE-5141, Lemoine Point, but not enough to be uncomfortable.
Because of the CQ WPX Contest on this weekend I chose to avoid 20m and 40m. Contest traffic on those bands was crammed into every inch of those bands. I decided to get on 17m and avoid the congestion. However, as soon as I starting calling CQ, the deliberate QRMing started. Apparently the Children don't like POTA on 17m, that's too bad, I kept going anyway.
Propagation today was: SFI=112, SN=50, A Index=10, and K Index=1.
There was some very deep QSB and lots of noise on 17m, which made things quite difficult, along with the deliberate QRMing, to actually complete a contact. But after a pretty slow thirty minutes I had 14 contacts in the log, including 2 into Spain, and so I went QRT.
I have to say that I was actually quite proud of the fact that my puny 10w into a 17m hamstick had so many of the regulars on 17m in a complete meltdown. Some people just don't like to share their space I guess. They insist POTA is a contest.....which it isn't.
By tomorrow morning the madness of the contest should have settled down, so I'm planning on another portable operating, this time on 10m and 15m, and see what DX I can work.
Here's todays QSO Map:
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