Last night was the NAQCC sprint. Things went well. I am still getting used to crowded band conditions using a wider receiver. The sprint started off with some other radio activity within the stated 40 meter frequencies of the sprint. That made for stronger stations next to weak ones. Digital stations are mixed in as well around 7.040. That was a well known QRP calling frequency at one time but now other digital stations are parked there. Everything changes at some point. Anyway, at first I was happy just to get the first QSO in the log. As the sprint went on the stronger stations were fewer and the band was improving going longer and longer. My final QSO was to OR. I ended up with 3 new states MN, MS, and OR. I got a total of 11 QSO's. It was a lot of fun. I keep wondering if something has been lost as most of us QRPers have chased after the Elecraft experience. A full featured high performance receiver at QRP power levels. That has it's place and it's progress. However, there is something different about no AGC and using my brain's dynamic range to pick out a signal instead of letting the radio filter out everything and isolating that one station in your bandpass for each QSO. When we are calling I wonder how many stations we don't hear because the filter setting is too tight?
I received an email from W3TTT during the sprint. Joe wanted to tell me that he was using his SW40+ during the sprint and showed me a shot of the reverse beacon net with his signal strength. He was doing great and apparently having a good time. The fact he reached out to me was super! I looked at my report as well on RBN and took a snap shot of it for the blog.
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