The Radio Fates are Mocking Me

After snagging that pelt during the weekly QRP Foxhunt, I got really jazzed about working some more QRP! My insomnia kicked in Thursday night, so I snuck out of bed and down to the shack to make a few contacts. I was unsuccessful and after an hour I snuck back into bed trying not to wake the XYL. With visions of far away contacts with my rig set to a bare 5 watts, consuming me, I waited for the weekend and radio time. But of course, The Radio Fates scoff at my puny efforts. Stuff came up and I couldn't get down to the shack for hours and hours. Finally, I get to the basement, hoping to work the Battle of Wilson Creek special event station and a couple others, and the propagation is just terrible. I never heard W0C, or very many other stations unless they were running amps. 40M had S8 noise last night and today, but 20 meters seemed to be active, but I called CQ for thirty minutes today (and a hour last night), and no one answered, even when I went QRO to 100 watts. Thus, The Radio Fates taunt me with a little bit of success and then mock me with a hundred distractions and poor band conditions. Curse you Radio Fates!

I am collecting the bits and pieces of equipment I have that have been packed away when I dropped out of the hobby. The one think I'm going to need to build my new mast is the one piece I'm dreading to get. It is my antenna base. Its a homebrew jackstand for airplanes. I picked it up at the local scrap yard for $15. It weighs a ton, but it works very well for the purpose I got it for, that is to hold up a mast without me having to do a permanent installation. My poor back hurts just thinking about lifting that mostrosity.

Once I have all the pieces, I will trim the trees back to make room the Alpha Delta LB Plus dipole. I'm hoping with a taller mast and a more professional antenna, I can get at least 2db gain over my current set up. I've listened in on a few QSOs, and stations that are given (legitimate, not contest) RSTs at 5/9+, I'm hearing them at 5/7. I particularly noticed this when a Ohio station was talking to a New Mexico station and the signal would have come straight through Kansas. I've also noticed I'm at least 2db lighter on receive when I check into the Maritime Mobile Net. This 2db discrepancy is way too frequent to be just a anomaly. Hopefully, my LB+ will restore my lost gain.