Hi all.
When Rick was on for his first run as Fox, I was left out in the cold with
no pelt. Just couldn't seem to hear him well enough to take many shots.
Last night started the same way but a little before 03:00 his signal began
it rise up out of the noise and peaked at S7 about 03:30 UTC. In switching
between the normally productive Windom antenna to a HB 1/4 vertical, the
vertical was consistently better on his signal. The difference between the
antennas was considerably greater last night than normal.
Many hounds were heard until the last 30 minutes when about the only signals
heard were the Fox, N4ROA, N6WG, WE6W and K6ABC. Dan, N4ROA was the
strongest at a constant S9 and the others were S5 to S7 with a S4 noise
level. At one point Rick worked several Colorado stations within a short
time frame with AB0CD being the last one I remember.
This was like a ring side seat at a hockey game where the players stand in
front of their goal and shoot at the goal at the other end of the Rink.... A
lot of shooting and not much scoring.... I think all the "6" stations
finally managed to connect and N4ROA was still banging away. Rick would call
"QRZ FOX de KF4AR" and Dan would answer with N4ROA over and over. Both had a
good supply of ammo and kept going until 04:00 when a eerie silence settled
over the frequency except for the KC8... who had been calling CQ there for a
while unaware of a gigantic struggle going on around him/her.
Another Fox Hunt fades away and the band sounds the same. Unless you "saw"
it you would never know.
72 Ron ki0ii
[
QRP-L Archive |
]
[
1993 |
1994 |
1995 |
1996 |
1997 |
1998 |
1999 |
2000
]