Getting caught up and 15m Activity
Over the past couple of days I’ve been sick with a cold or flu. I’m still not 100%. But it all started last weekend when I was cleaning up the shack to get it ready for the shack makeover project. At first I thought it was just allergies flaring up. Colorado is an extremely dry climate and I do suffer from seasonal allergies. These allergies are kept in check in the Spring, Summer and Fall by medication and I’m typically able to drop the meds in the winter months pending we have adequate snow fall to keep the outside dust conditions in check.
But since it doesn’t snow in the house (specifically the basement), and I had been crawling around on my hands and knees under my desks, I thought the sneezing and scratchy throat was just a dust bunnies revenge. I was wrong…or at least partially wrong. On Sunday I began feeling worn down and woke up on Monday morning with a sore throat and just generally feeling like I had been hit by a train.
I spent most of Monday and all day Tuesday in bed. Yesterday (Wednesday) I did manage to work a full day from home and today I’m in the office for at least a half day. Enough about that. I don’t want this blog post to sound like some of the HF conversations taking place on 75 and 80 meters.
I did manage to complete the shack move on schedule. All the rigs have power and are connected to their appropriate antennas. I will get all the details posted along with pictures of the new shack in the next few days. I truly love this new shack layout and best of all it really works.
What do I mean by “best of all it really works”? Well…I’m not sure I can explain it. Yes, the other shack layout worked. Nothing has changed with regards to the radios or the antennas. But I have more room and the layout is much, much nicer to work with. I have my Yaesu FT-950 front and center and the FT-897 (which runs digital modes mainly) is also easy to access. I have more than enough room for a notepad and am finally getting around to hanging up the little bit of wallpaper I’ve collected over the past couple of years.
Again…it’s hard to explain, but I just truly love this new setup. My main goal will be to keep it operational and not cluttered. In this same area is my podcast studio and a work area for my home office. I also have ample room for bench projects. It’s awesome and I’ll get photos posted soon.
The new setup has already paid off in the form of two DX contacts on the 15 meter band. While I knew about the 15 meter band, I had really not paid much attention to it until just recently. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve seen tweets on Twitter talking about various 15m band openings. Since my Hustler 6BTV provides 15m coverage, I decided to tune around the band some on Sunday morning and boy am I glad I did. Within just a few minutes I heard an Italian station calling CQ and within 5 minutes I was exchanging signal reports and getting him into my log. 15 meter once again paid off with a DX entry in my log book last night. I was wrapping up my work day (worked from home) and decided to tune around 15m to see if I could catch some grey line activity. Watching the DX spotting data in Ham Radio Deluxe I could see information being submitted by US amateurs who were hearing and working several Japanese amateurs on 15 meters. As the grey line approached my QTH, the signals from the JA’s were becoming stronger and stronger. I picked the strongest signal which happened to be JR3NZC. Within 15 minutes or so I had him in my log for a second time (worked him last year on PSK31).
If you haven’t checked out the 15 meter band (21MHz) lately, you should. There could be some DX waiting for you out there.
Until next time,
73,
Jerry