Topband: Still open from the sound of things

[N7DF]

T31A has been com ing in for several hours the last couple of nights with booming signals  even louder than the continuous lightning crashes from the midwest storms              listening to the pileups there are a lot of loud signals from stations all over the country calling them            he is an outstanding operator giving the call of the station he is calling several times at a reasonable speed and acknowledging the reply several times                  when I turned on my linear it began arcing, though, so I had to work him barefoot  - no problem            the trouble with the linear was a deposit of gypsum dust that had collected inside from the nearly continuous dust storms of the last month  (I live near the white sands desert)  gypsum is electrically conductive with even the merest trace of moisture  I keep a cloth cover over my equipment when not in use but the dust was so fine it got
 through anyway


 WHEN YOU ARE FACING THE LIGHT THE SHADOWS FALL BEHIND YOU