Hiatus

I had a project last fall to have my basement spray foam insulated.  My Ham Shack is in the basement and it was always so cold during the winter months.  By cold I mean about 10C.  This was not very conducive to enjoyable radio operation. I removed the old drywall and "insulation".  I won't even tell you the things I found in the walls but needless to say many critters of various type had lived in those walls over the years causing the insulation to sag and basically be almost ineffectual.  The spray foam insulation was installed in October and the installation of the drywall took me forever for me to complete as it was my first time doing it.  Then came the painting and laying down of the flooring.  It took me most of the winter but now my basement is so much warmer.  Once the room was completed I was able to set up my shack again and all it took was setting the FT-817 up again and I was right back at it. It took a few QSOs to knock the rust off my FIST but it's all back to normal now.  I didn't realize how much I missed it until I had a few contacts.  It's so nice when you can operate in comfort.  Now I am getting ideas, as spring approaches, to improve my antennas.  My antennas are all wire dipoles but I want to expand my band options.  My 30-20-10 fan dipole is actually more of a 30-17-15-12.  I think I will put up a separate fan dipole for 20-40 this summer.  With that up I can really work on getting some QRPp work going and get some increased Miles Per Watt QSOs.  My best so far is 6983 MPW to UA4HBW in Russia in February of 2013.  I know I can do way better than that either with some milliwatt transmitters or with some attenuators on my 817.

Lots to do and have fun with.  Looking forward to it.