[Today’s run: 3.5 miles]
This is the time of year for the 40-meter (Tuesdays) and 80-meter (Thursdays) QRP fox hunt.
I’ve talked about the fox hunts before: QRP means low power, in this case 5 watts output. Two stations find a spot in a preselected area of the given band (40 meters, say) and they transmit. I am one of the “hounds” and I try to find the foxes and exchange signal reports with them.
In past years the hunt on 40 meters (7030-7050 kHz) was usually easier because the signals came in strong but there was not a lot of atmospheric noise. The 80 meter hunt (3550-3570 kHz) was usually more difficult, the atmospheric noise was much louder and the signals just didn’t carry as far.
This year, whether it’s the sunspot cycle or the weather patterns, something has cleared up the 80 meter band and made that much quieter and workable. But 40 is “long” which means I can hear people from other countries rather than the fox. (I forgot to say that the fox hunt is limited to the USA.) Last night I heard a station from Brazil booming in near 7031 kHz but I could only find one of the fox stations late in the hunt period when the conditions started to shift a bit, the other one I never did hear.
People who don’t know radio probably think this stuff works out in a predictable way day after day, year after year. But limiting things to 5 watts gives it a lot of variability.