Chasing The Germans, Chasing the Lower 48 And The Beginning Our Next Life Chapter

QSO Party & SKCC's WES @ Radio KL8DX

It seems we encountered yet another weekend in which the sun flexed its solar muscle and put a damper on some of the weekend operating. It started out okay and by Saturday, I was thinking we may be safe. As luck would have it, by 0600z on the 14th, the ionosphere got its bell rung by the sun. The impact was reported by spaceweather dot com showing the hit around 2255z on the 13th. But at that time, I was still hearing stations strong and the bands were favorable. I was slightly optimistic that the predicted BIG lower 48 auroral event would not happen. My backup plan was to photograph the aurora (assuming it was going to happen) but even that comes with a challenge these days. I'm a morning person and now that spring is returning to Alaska, we have daylight up through 2200 local. To experience complete darkness, we need to stay up pretty late. I charged the camera battery anyhow, just in case I had insomnia.

5W0M QSO's for KL8DX logged in ClubLog

My activity this weekend was going to be exclusively Search & Pounce (S&P). I was going to chase those in the New Mexico QSO Party, the Georgia QSO Party and finally the Montana QSO Party. I was also going to continue my quest of chasing 5W0M on Samoa. Anything in the Pacific is pretty easy for my little station as there is not much between me and most of the large mass of ocean. Well, one BIG mountain does make a few locations in the pacific tough for me, all 20,320 feet of it! But the Samoa group is sounding great here in the Interior and they are doing a fantastic job as far as DXpeditions go. I wanted to support my fellow SK'ers by getting on and chasing a few SKCC Weekend operators during their monthly WES (Weekend Sprintathon). My Navy Flameproof has felt neglected I'm sure. 

The bands were tough for most of Sunday but by Sunday afternoon, propagation started to return. I stuck pretty much to CW on 20 meters, the only real propagational band for me. The Georgia QSO Party appeared to have the most activity followed by the New Mexico QSO Party. I worked only one station that I found CQ'n in the Montana QSO Party. But, there was a large group of SKCC'ers on so I knew that my limited time on the radio should yield some contacts. I'm dividing my time between a few home projects and radio on the weekends. Auroral events make it much less stressful when trying to decide which to do, radio or work on home improvement projects. 

Secret Weapon at KL8DX. She sniffs out Mults & New Ones

By the time the weekend closed out and the bands feel silent on Sunday afternoon, I added only about 43 QSO's to my logbook. Again, all S&P and when I had a few minutes to park myself in the shack chair. I did have a visitor a few times. When "mom" is gone, she tends to keep me company. She does not mind the sound of CW and I think it actually puts here to sleep. She is 13½, so it does not take much to put here to sleep these days. At times, I will even get a visit from the family feline but that's normally during those very early morning hours when the rest of the household is still asleep. The cat and I are the only ones who normally catch the sunrise. 

©KL8DX Sunrise as seen from my shack window

So, with only a limited number of sunrises left here in Alaska, we begin planning the next chapter of our life. It won't be long now before we begin our journey that will take us over 4,600 road miles east, to our next assignment. That's the beauty of the National Park Service, lots of beautiful places my wife and I would like to experience during the 2nd half of our careers. But don't worry, we have plans of returning to Alaska but for now, our career path takes us across our great country. I have to admit, it will take some time to adjust to traffic, people, driving only a few minutes to the local grocery store and having something I order from HRO (Ham Radio Outlet) delivered to my doorstep. I'm still not tired of the 2 hour drive (one way) to get groceries, to see doctors and get our truck worked on. I have lived the dream and it's a dream I will live again. My activity level will take a short break in the coming weeks but then, my faint signal will once again be heard. The only difference is, there will be a /W1 after my callsign when I'm operating. More on that later but for now, our family beagle has awoke and has decided she wants to venture outdoors. Something tells me she was not dreaming of bass fishing, but I do! What say you, Martin? 

From K3Y to NAQP & One Week Antenna

ARS KL8DX

This turned out being a short weekend for me but some radio fun was had anyways. Once again, we have been experiencing winds from one weather system after another coming up from the Gulf of Alaska. If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you will know the wind is our biggest challenge next to our deep bitter cold temperatures. South wind gusts just down the road from us peaked on January 10th, at over 80 mph. I'm thankful for our QTH being shadowed somewhat from Mount Healy. This keeps the wind gusts we experience here a bit more manageable. We will see 65 to 70 mph wind gusts here but it's not the 90+ that is experienced at Antler Creek and the area we call the "Windy Bridge" a few miles to our south. Needless to say, the weekend weather once again effected my operating. We only had gusts in the mid 50 mph range, so I did not crank down the beam. Thankfully the Mosley once again showed me why I personally feel it's the best built beam I've ever owned. 

My operating this short weekend was going to focus on the North America QSO Party (NAQP) CW contest and the Straight Key Century Club's Weekend Sprintathon.  I had also signed up to operate as K3Y/KL7 for SKCC's annual January celebration in which they (club members) operate with the callsign K3Y for the month of January. SKCC is what really got me started with my love of using the straight key. My first CW contacts 25 years ago were with a straight key but I did not grow back into using a straight key until about 6 years or so ago. I have four straight keys at my finger tips and they out number my iambic keys of which, I have three. 

My operating in the NAQP was short lived and I was on and off the air as I've been working on a home project and a few other things. My effort is outlined 
to the right. Not really anything to write home about but the Alaska Contest Group was out so not many should have missed Alaska, which was a state in this contest and NOT DX by the way!

My minimal NAQP effort

My main challenge was dealing with the gusting winds and the QRN (Interference) that it was creating. With several wind related systems over the last few weeks, it's pretty obvious that some power lines have been effected and are arching. The noise was enough to effect my effort in hearing weaker stations. It also made it a bit tough to manage with strong stations along side as I had to use my Noise Blanker. So it lead to many repeats asked for and just made the weekend contesting experience much less enjoyable. Probably not a bad thing as I had several other things going on this weekend. Either way, I did make a handful of QSO's and encountered many a friend. I was asked to QSY to the other bands and most were successful. You can tell by the numbers reflected above on where I spent the majority of my time.

Recognize that Spectrum Scope Signature?

I enjoyed chasing SKCC WES stations as well, both during and after the NAQP. I also signed up to operate four hours as K3Y/KL7. The first few hours went well but the solar wind increased and knocked the bands someplace else. With only being able to hear strong stations which had the usual flutter associated with them, my noise made it nearly impossible to work or hear any stations at all. The last two hours of my scheduled effort was pretty uneventful. I had high hopes of working at least 100 stations but I only ended up working a 3rd of that by the time it was all said and done. Once again, the effects of living in a northern latitude made radio'n nearly impossible. But like the NAQP, I'm glad of the contacts I was able to make and hopefully I was able to send a multiplier to a few folks. 

You're probably wondering about my apparent miss use of "Week" in my subject line. Actually, I meant to use "Week" rather than "Weak" but either one would probably work. Just a bit over a week ago I pulled a new antenna from our chilly travel trailer that I had purchased last year. The antenna was one I purchased for portable use while camping. It was a purchased G5RV Jr from W8AMZ. My 80 meter wire antenna began to give me problems after a few years of arctic abuse so I threw this antenna up to use temporarily. I also threw up a second portable antenna, a Par EndFedz 17 meter wire. It took just two storms blowing at over 50 mph to end the life of the G5RV. The end fed is still hanging strong. The G5RV lost an element when the wire broke near the apex! Yes, I can fix it and I plan to. I'm not here to bash this antenna but like a few others I purchased that were made commercially or by someone else, it failed to stand up to one of our typical weather events. It heard pretty well and tuned easily, so it will be worth fixing after "beefing" up a bit. I will be honest, I did not expect it to fail so quickly, especially being brand new and used for the very first time. I'm thinking of a few more Par EndFedz when I can afford them. So far, I'm pretty impressed with em. I gifted a Par EndFedz to my close and personal friend KL1SF, and he has reported it being a successful antenna as well.

So that's my short weekend in a nutshell. I hate to brag (and I actually don't care for this weather) but our temperatures peaked at 44 degrees above zero this weekend! As I write this, it's still 38 degrees above zero! These wind events from the south (Chinook) bring the warm air with them and our temperatures can increase dramatically in just a matter of hours. Much of our snow is melting and areas around the state have experienced flooding from rain and roads have been ice in many of areas south of here. Crazy to think locations in the lower 48 are colder than Alaska in January! 

January is lining up to be a pretty busy month so my operating will occur during small windows of opportunity. That's the beauty of this great hobby, it's always here when I have time, patiently awaiting my return.