May Malaise

It was a better week, but still not back to where things were in early March.

The local noise has been more sporadic, disappearing completely some days, raging on others. I guess that is progress.

Band conditions have seemed poor more often than not. Or at least when I am able to attempt to get on air. It is frustrating to scroll through 10 meters and hear nothing, where just a few months ago right around lunch time it would be packed with European stations. I’m not hearing much DX anywhere, to be honest. Even 20 meters, full of POTA stations not too long ago, takes work to find anyone. Where once I was checking into the OMISS net a couple times a week, now I can only hear the big guns who have amps cranked up and it is not worth the trouble.

And we’re only 18 months past solar maximum? Yikes.

On the positive side when I am able to make contacts, I still generally get good signal reports. Wednesday I got a 59 with props for how I sounded and afterwards realized I still had the power cranked down to 50 watts for FT8. Icom, sponsor me.

I have realized that where radio was easy my first six months, now it takes work. And luck. And a mindset change on my part. If got my second hundred countries as easily as my first, there would be no challenge in the hobby.

I had hoped to get out and do another POTA activation this week, but weather, propagation conditions, and some family stuff prevented that. Maybe next week. The college kids come back this weekend so I will need excuses to get out of the house!

I have a couple small projects in the shack lined up as well. Nothing that would impress the guys on Ham Radio Workbench. In fact they would have been ashamed had they seen me try to use a soldering iron this week.