A Cold Day...

After a couple of fairly warm days, today was bitterly cold again. The cold, coupled with a strong north wind, was not at all pleasant to be out in. But, and there's always a 'But', it's the 29th February and this day only comes every four years, so I thought that was a good enough reason to go to a park and operate.

I went back to Lemoine Point, VE-5141, as I'm close to completing 100 activations there, and want to get that milestone behind me.

Propagation was good, today's numbers were: SFI=180, SN=109, A Index=6, and the K Index=1.  There was also, I found out, some QSB.

I had a look at the solar-terrestrial data before I set-up and realized that once again 15m was going to be my go-to band, so out came the 15m hamstick and mag-mount.

In 25 minutes I put 28 contacts in the log, including 6 Spanish stations, 2 in England, and 1 each from Germany, Austria, and France.  In other words, a great day on the bands for a QRP SSB station!  It never ceases to surprise me what can be done with 10w and a hamstick antenna.

Here's todays contact map:

Be Well, and Stay Safe Out There!