Over the past months there have been a few attempts to break through my inner force field. I managed to keep all bacteria and viruses out most of the time or at least limit their effect but I never took the time to recover from these attempts of ‘breaking and entering’. So about ten days ago, I had to give in. I fell ill. And I didn’t care to fight back this time. I just let myself crash and burn. I’m not about to expose my entire medical record but believe me it was a bad case of flu. I was very tired and I still am actually.
It’s been a very long and cold winter. We’re not really used to that anymore around here. I’ve lost track of how many times the country was covered in a thick layer of snow this season. Snow falls and is gone after a few days. Sometimes even after one day. My three year old kid has seen more snow already than I have over the decade before he was born. Even last Sunday I woke up to see a layer of snow covering the landscape. Oh no, not again – it’s almost Easter! Yet it remains very cold. It freezes at night and we haven’t seen nor felt much sunlight. It was on the TV news and our doctor confirmed: many people start feeling the effect of being deprived of sunlight. Count me in!
It’s not only on the WX front that the sun lets us down. What’s up with propagation? While thinking of WPX SSB and what to do, I noticed earlier this week that SFI dipped deep below 100 again with high A/K values. Oh come on Sun. Develop spots for RF propagation and let your warm light shine down on us!
With still being very tired and not really boiling with energy and motivation, I decided not to do an all band entry this time. Fifteen meters can be fun in SSB but only when propagation is good. But it doesn’t seem to be. Now what? Do an SOAB just for fun? But I took down the second set of elevated radials for another round of trimming trees. That leaves me without 80. I don’t care about 160 in WPX so that’s not a problem. I guess I’ll just crank up the tower and see what happens on the highest four bands (40 > 10). Oh wait – ten meters? *chuckle*
It won’t be a full time competitive effort, especially not given the mood I’m in and the mode the contest is run in. It’ll be another round of strolling the bands and trying to have some runs. If you hear me, give me a shout!
2 replies on “The Sun lets us down – twice!”
Hi Franki, I hope you’ll recover from all these bacteria and viruses soon, flu is the illness most people get this time of the year. I just recovered from a very bad case of bacterial inflammation. Also my little harmonic has seen more snow in her life then I did last 5 years and she is badly affected by the less sunlight effect. Well let’s hope for the best this weekend in the CQWW WPX SSB, as far as I can see A index is dropping and sunspots are increasing somewhat. If I hear you I’ll give you a shout. I heard you a few weeks ago in the ARRL contest on 10m via backscatter btw. Good luck, 73, Bas
Hi Franky, indeed this winter is too long for the area … and unfortunately still present – this is the cause I don’t use “was” but “is”. As we joke with my wife: it’s a shame to get rachitis on this age 😀
I wish you quick recovery !
73