Florida QSO Party chaos

67. That’s the number of counties in Florida. And it’s 4171 kilometers from Victoria to Tampa.

So was it easy to reach Florida on 75 watts SSB? Somewhat. And who knows which layer (D, E, F1, F2) my HF radiation took. The 20-meter band was noisy and somewhat useless. 10-meters wasn’t much better. However, 15 meters was the sweet band.

I ventured forth to my favorite DX site – the Oak Bay marina – on Saturday after breakfast with ham friends. I set up my vertical antenna and my radio. I turned on my laptop with N1MM and connected my CAT cable.

There was an issue, however. I had no cursor and no keyboard. Chaos! Try as I might, nothing worked. I smelled a rat, a software rat, and Microsoft rat. I left the marina and headed back to my apartment and started some problem solving. It was a Windows 10 update that had caused the chaos.

Did I ever make any contacts? Happily, yes. I returned to the marina on Sunday and notched eight counties, 7 on 15-meters and 1 on 10-meters. Not a great number. But it was fun.

Oh, I didn’t tell you about my travails with the QSO party setting on N1MM. I won’t bother. It’s a boring story.

Glenn Lindsey VA7HC