Flu Season...

It was the first time in 10 days that I have been on the HF bands today. While I'm still not over the flu, I'm actually feeling a lot better with the exception of the cough which I just can't get rid of. I must apologize to those operators to whom I had a coughing fit while trying to answer their calls.

We have had quite a bit of snow in the past week, and many of the local POTA spots are unaccessible due to fact they haven't been plowed out yet. Knowing how things operate around here, it may be some days before the clean up is done. The only place I could get to was CA-5141, Lemoine Point, they had actually plowed out the access road and parking lot. 

The daily propagation didn't look very good, but I thought it was worth a try. The numbers were: SFI=159, SN=126, A Index=27, and the K Index=2. There was also lots of very deep QSB on all the bands. It was also -10C (14F) with several snow squalls coming through the area while I was there. 

I decided to start the activation on 10m SSB as it looked promising and eventually moved to 15m. First up was Pedro, PR8ZX, in Brazil and 6254 km away. Pedro was followed by DL1AX, IZ4DYQ, and F5NZO. I ended the day with 15 contacts in the log.

It was nice to be able to get out of the house for a change of scenery, made even better by being about to do a POTA activation, especially for the SYP Winter Event. Radio was my trusty KX3 set at 10 screaming watts and ham sticks. 

Here's todays contact map:

Stay Safe Out There!