Tuesday night was quite an adventure. I saw that Pensacola Florida got
over 6.5" of snow. Some spots along the Gulf got up to 8" of the heavy
wet stuff. The cold seems to be everywhere East of the Mississippi and
in parts West of the Mississippi! The only weather advantage of living
on a hill happens on cold clear nights. Temps dropped down to about zero
F late Tuesday, but down off the hill it was much colder. Sanford, ME.
airport registered -16F. The cold seemed to bother everybody. There
were many breakdowns of rotators, rotor loops, and even equipment. AJ6T
lost his rotator as did WA3EOQ. W8ZN's transverter looked at the
thermometer and decided to go on strike for better working conditions.
It was a rough night.
Hello Frozen VHFers,
I worked about 15 stations, but noted that my electric heat was not
enough to heat up the shack. The temps quickly rose to above freezing,
but then got stuck at about 50F and struggled to go higher. I took that
as a reason to go home and warm up my feet next to the woodstove. I
quit early at about 8:30 PM or 01:30 UT. The good news was that I
managed to contact K1PXE last evening. We had a nice chat. Other
stations included regulars WA1MBA, KC1V, K1FSY W1AIM, WZ1V, KA1OJ,
W2TMA, KC2KAE, WA1RKS, W2BYP, WA3NUF, WA2LTM, and W1XR in FM19. N1JEZ
was on from FN44 at 2100 ft and was having great luck working some
pretty good DX including W1XR. That is a long haul. I tried with K9FW on
meteors for about ten minutes. K9MRI listened in as well, and none of us
heard anything. This is about the worst time for meteors, and any luck
tends to happen in the morning, when the Earth sweeps up meteors that
are approaching. Midnight is the worst time.
Not much else to report as signals were very weak, watery, and elusive.
I heard from the 222 MHz Activity Committee that they tried to contact
several diehard 222 ops who were active last night, but for some reason
they were told that the lucky operator was not at home. Two 222 VHFers
feigned recent deaths, while another claimed to be in a nursing home
with a drool bucket. In desperation, the 222 MHz Activity Committee
called up a county hunter ham participant out of the call book at
random, and awarded the trip to Beechey Island to that lucky ham. He is
bringing his Xiegu transceiver with him along with most parts of a
Buddi-Pole and some RG-8X.
The weather should moderate by this weekend. I am hoping next week is
better for all of us.
73
Dave K1WHS
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