Monday, 8 December 2025

A Cold Day...

This morning I decided to activate Parrott's Bay, CA-5142. This will probably be my last activation there until the spring unless they decide to plow out the parking lot.....which they didn't do last year. The conservation area is still open, but I needed to turn on my 4-wheel drive to get into the parking lot, as it has about a foot of snow over it.

It was a nippy -18C (0.4F) morning with the wind there today, making antenna changes very uncomfortable.

I started on 40m SSB and called for over 10 minutes and another 8 minutes on CW without a response, This is highly unusual as I can normally scare somebody up on that band....but not today. There were a number of stations on POTA Spots shown working on 40m, but I went looking for them and never heard a single one.

I then moved down to 20m and made 22 easy SSB contacts in 18 minutes, so it seems 40m was just being fickle today. First in the log was John, N2XD in North Carolina. No DX was either heard or worked.

Radio was the KX3 with hamsticks for my antenna.

Propagation was: SFI=194, SN=131, A Index=8, and the K Index=0, and no QSB.

Here's todays contact map:


Stay Safe and Warm Out There!!