24 February 2025

I used to check the band conditions before heading out. I stopped doing that because it did not seem to matter. Unless the conditions are really bad under an extreme geomagnetic storm, you can probably make some contacts under less than ideal conditions. After setting up my 12m dipole for more CW ops today, I tuned around the SSB portion of the band to listen for any activity. I could hear a net taking check-ins and someone mentioned about a “solar flare going on.” Here goes nothing.

The weather this morning heading to the beach was overcast. While some clouds in the distance looked rather dark, there was no rain. Just a steady breeze. Ideal conditions to not sweat too much like I usually do on these morning operations. First to come back to my CQ calling was Zoran, WA7AA, in Seattle. His signal sounded good so I took that as a good sign, but after that, nothing. I called CQ for ten minutes before the next call came in. It was an unusually slow start but did pick up. What I noticed very quickly was deep, deep QSB. Signals were 55 then dropping to 31 like the slow rolling swells just off shore. Throughout the morning this made for interesting attenuation of signals from far away.

One interesting QSO was with W7P, as I don’t get a lot of 1-by-1 callsigns. I appreciated them stopping by as they are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Pluto discovery. Around 2100z JA had their breakfast and coffee and came to join the party. Normally they blow away all other signals but again they were up and down too. That allowed some US stations to find their way into the log. After nearly 5 hours on the radio, working many JA 6-digit calls my brain started its own QSB and I began having trouble distinguishing F’s from L’s. With lunch calling I went QRT just before the new UTC day with 273 QSO in the log.

This recent jump into the CW pool from Wake Island has been a great experience. Someone reached out to let me know they made their first CW contact with me, just to get Wake in their log. Fantastic and I hope they keep with it. CW is a lot of fun and a time honored tradition of our hobby.

Lastly, one of the photos attached is of an old, washed up electric insulator. A few weeks back I started using it as a paperweight to keep my log pages under control in the constant breeze. I was staring at it one day, not unlike staring at the clouds, and I saw it. A face. So I gave it a smile, eyebrows and a nose. Kind of like my own version of Tom Hanks’ Mr. Wilson from Castaway. I don’t have a name for him yet. For the record I haven’t started talking to him yet either. Might be time for me to spend some time off island though just in case. 73 and good DX, Allen