To coin an America phrase, well it certainly sux for me on a personal level but radio wise things arent quite so gloomy, im still only able to get on 10m for the time being, I purchased a cheap Cushcraft A3S which is in need of a fair bit of TLC to get it back to its former glory, I should really have looked a little closer when I bought it but it was all bundled up, a few of the tubes have been cut and bodged together and a few are bent so it will need a fair bit of work, the traps all look ok though apart from a few missing plastic end caps, one of my fellow CDXC members has very kindly sent me a couple of spare traps with good ends which will help enormously with my restoration, im not sure if once I have gotten it all sorted I will put up as a 3 element tribander or maybe just try it as a 2 element with reflector and driven element, ive still got the neighbours to think of.
10m has been in pretty good nick for the last couple of weeks and indeed as if ordered to plan the band was wide open for the CQWW contest weekend, I was working but managed to grab a little bit of time whilst at the workshop to bag a couple of all time new ones in BA7LOK and VR2T, also in the last week have managed to work my first VK on 10m for probably 20 odd years, managed to work the 7P8RU Dxpedition and the 3DA0RU Dxped previously, other noteable ones another ATNO in VP9I in Bermuda and then to top it all JT1CO from Mongolia, so all in all its been a great couple of weeks radio wise on 10m, sadly my personal life is still a struggle every day, I think it will take me a very long time if ever to get over my seperation from the love of my life.
I have put up a couple of youtube videos for you to see some of the fantastic conditions we have been having on 10m recently
And lastly as the feature pic for this blog post its the most recent picture of the shack since pretty much everything else has been sold, looking very bare considering the 7700, 7600 and 7300 were in the shack previously
Onwards and Upwards, albeit very slowly at the mo, Adrian