Tonight was the first PSK contest I’ve participated in for quite some time. I’m willing to bet it’s been at least two solid years. I continued knocking the dust off my gear by participating in the Penn-Ohio DX Society’s 40M Firecracker Sprint. It’s been fun yet more challenging than before. The wire I’m using now that I had to replace my previous one isn’t very resonant in the range I’m operating at. I’m pushing almost 2.0 SWR which sucks when you’re not using much power to begin with. I haven’t quite knocked out 20 contacts yet but it’s also been a slow night. I must not have very good ears because I’m just seeing the same calls scrolling across.

I’m not sure what the problem is but I hardly hear anything if I switch to the dipole. I’m not sure if it’s gotten damaged or what. I think I’m going to try to replace it with the 80M OCF I built a few years ago. I think it tunes up pretty nicely on 40 though I’ll have to sweep the digital portion of the band before I commit.

I really wish I could finish the contest (it runs until 2am local) but I’m wiped out. I didn’t sleep well last night and was up until 4am. I think I’ll shoot for one more contact and call it a night.