It’s been days without going to any summit, and I was looking for a chance. When I was about to go to bed I saw an alert from my friend Guru EA2IF announcing his schedule for Sunday morning.
Weather forecast was good and I thought to myself: “What if I give him a surprise and work him tomorrow morning S2S?”
I had only one problem: I was a bit ill with sore throat since two days… Maybe due to excessive voice punch when teaching my hiper-energized teenagers at school?
All right, I decided to go on and perform a CW only activation to take care of my throat. It is good to be able work both modes, just in case!!
Sunday 1st November, I arrived in the summit after a nice walk. Weather was very good, and nature was bright in autumn colors.
I settled the gear but Guru wasn’t yet in his summit as confirmed without a spot in sotawatch.
I scanned 30m band just in case, but he wasn’t there so I qsyed to 20m CW and started the activation.
It all went well, solid reports thanks to recovered HF propagation, including a couple HB9 stations S2S. I carried my VHF as well to chase the announced EA2 activities for this morning and I could copy and work EA2DYS/P S2S.
Then I saw the auto spot of EA2IF/P starting his activation. I had coupled my 20m EFHW antenna to be able to run 30m with reduced performance. I tuned the band and there he was. We exchanged and sent him the qtc of the day: “surprise hi hi”. It was nice to greet him and log this extra S2S.
Guru must be somewhere there to the right…
Later on, I stayed on 30m CW and called for some minutes. As expected, reports in this band were poor for me as the antenna wasn’t a proper one for the band. Anyway I could log DL4MHA/P S2S and some more chasers in 10 MHz.
I was tired and summit was by the time occupied with two families. I logged on more HF S2S by working DC1SK/P in 20m SSB. I had some difficulties to complete the exchange as my voice refused to work properly, reducing the output power of my rig. Perhaps a QRPp contact??
I decided to remove the HF aerial while I monitored VHF again to get three more S2S, with EA2CW/P and EA2WX/P together on the same summit and EB2FDT/P on another…
All in all a good day.
Concerning my throat let me offer here the
Health tip of the day:
When your throat is irritated and you suffer from temporary hoarse, appart from going to the doctor you can apply one (or all) the present remedies:
Drink more water, fluids
Honey, taken straight or with tea
Sucking pills with menthol / lemon
Eucalyptus vapor inhalation
I know there are more remedies available but this is what I have at home now…
Night night cough cough! 73 de Ignacio
