This is the village idiot speaking. I thought the ARRL160 contest would be
a fun one over the weekend, even though the solar report looked fairly
awful, so resolved to take Friday afternoon off from work and string out my
wires for 80 and 160, then make at least a half-hearted effort in the
contest.
When I got it all up, 80 played beautifully, but the analyzer couldn't find
a dip anywhere on the 160 antenna. I added wire, since I figured it had to
be short. No go. Then I checked the 30m traps in the 160 line and found an
open. Fixed the trap, put it up, tried it again. No go. That was about
sunset. One more iteration of taking the trap out of the line and adding
more wire to make up for it and I was tripping along the beach in pitch
blackness. Oh well, at least there was Saturday night.
Then I got on the computer, and it said today was Saturday, December 4, at
2355. Huh? Right time, UTC, but off by a day. My watch said December 3,
which last I saw was Friday. The contest should have been 2 hours old at
that point. But a check of news posts on the internet all said today was
Saturday, not Friday. A worldwide conspiracy to confuse me? Couldn't be!
Then it dawned...I have a 31 day watch, and November was only 30 days. Oh
well. This is one of the hazards of living alone. The only people I ever
talk with are on the radio, and the daily rhythm down here varies not a bit
from day to day.
So this morning I got the 160 antenna working beautifully by about 7:30
a.m., local time. Natch, I started off too long yesterday and was
resonating below the working limit of my MFJ analyzer. Adding wire had just
made it worse. Of course, all the east coast guys figured the contest was
over by that time so all I got was a handful of midwest and west coast
stations, plus a booming KH7R. There's always next year, I guess. But
thanks to the guys who know the contest isn't over until it's over. It was
nice to be able to work a few stations on the new antenna.
ZF2NT, Little Cayman
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