[Boatanchors] Sunday HCI 20 Meter Net Solar Flares Or Not!

[Duane Fischer, W8DBF]

Today at 1648 UTC old Sol belched some toxic plasma from one of those
thermonuclear shakes he imbibes and his x-ray breath wiped out HF propagation
like a group of teenage boys devouring the food for the picnic 'before' the
picnic! The space weather people predict more of the same for the next several
days. Undaunted, I challenge you to suck it up, brave the solar flares and
noxious gas that old Sol hurls and show up tomorrow for the Sunday July 18th HCI
20 meter Net. I need contacts from stations in North Dakota, Iowa, Alaska and
Utah. So warm up those rigs and let's not let old Sol ruin our fun with his
molten indigestion and worse than a baked bean puffer in a closed elevator bad
breath!

I fed the mythical energy generating generator Gerbils some extra vitamins, and
some amphetamines I caught the neighborhood female bully with while
trying to sneak them into my bird feeder to see how fast a Blackbird could
really fly before his feathers blew off, and they should be running on their
little treadmill like Olympic sprinters out to set a new world record. Those
extra electrical watts should give the old pair of 3-500zs a little extra kick
in the old amp. Who knows watt will happen when those super charged electrons
bang into the D layer of the Ionosphere like muscle enhanced football players
trying to punch out the lights of the opposing team as they charge down the
field with a rooster tail of artificial turf rocketing skyward off their cletes,
fire flashing in their bloodshot eyes like the guy who got that vintage receiver
for $5 at the last possible second before the Dayton Ham Fest closed and escaped
alive! Those Strata Nimbus or smogus pollutis cumulous clouds won't have a
chance to grab the electrons and stuff them down their vortex like a storm sewer
gulping down over the curb run off before they bounce off their dust and H2O
particulate visage and skip into those states I need to QSO with!

The pre-Net will commence at 12:45 PM EDT, (1645 UTC), with a sixty second
highly condensed summation of the NOAA space weather prognostication delivered
by my synthetic speech synthesizer talking like Donald Duck after way too many
cups of coffee!

I will be on the air at/about 12:20 PM EDT, (1620 UTC), oiling the Hustler 6BTV
vertical with liquid graphite so that the immediate vicinity birds do not perch
on the eighty meter whip section and enjoy themselves way too much seeing how
far they can make it sway from right to left! The neighborhood Cats all sit
patiently by the base and wait for the birds to grab for a grip, lose it and
slip and drop right onto their dinner plates! Join me early if you can hide from
the kids or grand kids and wife with a list of honeydo's longer than that
necktie you accidentally shut the car door on and then tried to run for the
safety of the Ham shack as the lightning flashed and thunder crashed all around
you  and stretched it out longer than one of old Uncle  Geriatric's tales of the
old days.

The Net proper will begin at 1:15 PM EDT, (1715 UTC), if I do not forget to wind
the sun dial and the alarm fails to go off. (Don't ask!) If I am late, I am sure
that one of those stations without call letters will blurt out the fact that it
is time to start the Net and make some of those croaking sounds.

The frequency will be 14.293 MHZ usb +/- for key clicks, mike splatter and the
sound of the whirring blades of the Green Peace chopper overhead as it circles
the county looking for the genetically engineered 'book worm' that escaped from
the Michigan State genetic research facility and has eaten two adult book
stores, five newspaper stands, three used book and magazine shops and the entire
toilet paper stock in a local Sams Club! Maybe they can sedate this thing by
feeding it a Hairy Potter novel!

I hope to hear you tomorrow. So brave the solar flares, warm up the filaments
and let's share some facts, fibs and fellowship. If you know of somebody in the
states the HCI Net needs cards from to complete the fifty state display being

designed, please contact them and ask them to join us.

Duane Fischer, W8DBF
NCS: Hallicrafters Collectors International
netcontrol at w9wze.org
HCI: http://www.w9wze.org