Well that was nearly a bust! I don't know when I have seen conditions so
poor and I made an error in strategy.
I had a brief chat with K1WHS at the start.
Tried a chat-coordinated sked with K1DS using Q65-60A. I saw nothing.
Rick reported seeing a sync tone but no decodes. Discovered when it is
hot in the shack my driver amp gets warmer than I feel is a good idea so
I scrambled around really fast and found a 12V fan to sit on top of it
and made a quick connection to a nearby power supply.
Tried chat-coordinated skeds with KA2LIM and WA2VNV. Not a peep.
Heard VE2XX talking to K1WHS but I was busy with a coordinated QSO
attempt and didn't get a chance to work Stu.
Heard someone else (N1QG I think but not 100% sure) with Dave but I was
busy with a sked.
Heard two stations chatting on 222.119.4, didn't give calls before they
both faded out.
Called CQ on CW for a while and worked WZ1V.
So I had just two QSOs, K1WHS and WZ1V. Conditions seemed really
horrible. One lesson learned for next time is no chat coordinated
attempts in the first hour or so. That time should be left free for
working the easy ones that I can hear around the band without assistance.
There was some EME activity and since I had not had any prior
opportunity to see if I could hear signals off the moon on 222 I went
down to listen in on that. The only station transmitting was K1WHS. I
was decoding him direct of course, but for 45 minutes or so I was also
seeing his sync tone clearly via the EME path. At times I could also see
all of his tones via the EME path, but I never got an EME decode. This
was curious because I know Dave's EME signal was strong enough for solid
decodes, probably around -20 to -18 or so. Does WSJT-X refuse to decode
the same call sign twice on two different frequencies within the
passband on JT65? I am encouraged that I could see Dave's EME signal so
well despite a bit of power line noise, but it doesn't appear there is
much interest in Q65 among the 222 EME crowd.
I will be on ON4KST chat and Ping Jockey trying to find folks to run
meteors this morning until 1300z. I have modified my schedule to free up
all of Thursday the 12th and Friday the 13th (oops, do I want to run
radios that day considering how my luck has been lately? HI HI) for
meteor scatter. Unfortunately I don't think there are many within range
on 222 that I haven't already worked. I hope some come out of the
woodwork as I have been having a lot of fun with the meteors over the
past week.
73,
Paul N1BUG
FN55mf
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