The weekend was quite the roller coaster of band behaviour. On Saturday the propagation numbers made us believe that it would be a great day to play portable radio.......we were wrong. While the numbers looked really good, the truth of the matter was they they were not that good and the very deep QSB certainly didn't help matters at all.
On Saturday it took me 2.5 hours to make 20 contacts. These were split between 40m and 20m, and the last six contacts of the day were on 40m CW. No Canadian or DX contacts were made, but 13 US states made it into the log.
Instead of my usual hamsticks I put up my 29 foot EFRW with a 9:1 Unun, and two 17 foot ground radials. There was no difference in the contact pattern on my contact map, from when I use a simple hamstick.
Sunday was a different matter. The SFI had climbed up to 317, the highest point of the cycle I believe, and the bands just rocked, and had all the previous night.
In a little over 40 minutes I managed to get 24 SSB contacts in my log, including two from the UK – G7SQW and G7PNF, one from Belgium – OS8D, and the other from the Netherlands – PA4PA. Not too bad for 10w and a hamstick.
It’s interesting that this morning (Sunday) a US ham published a YouTube video about how QRP operators are killing off POTA. Somehow I don’t think he grasps the concept of either POTA or QRP operating.
All-in-all it was a great weekend on the bands.
Sunday's Contact Map:
There’s a G2 & G3 Solar Storm warning issued for Monday and Tuesday, we’ll be lucky to have decent stable bands back by Friday.
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