[Elecraft] Instant QRN

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Kevin, KD5ONS wrote:
...Mt. St. Helens blowing off a bit of ash now and 
then.  I missed the 1980 burst but may get to see another one.

-----------------

Grabbing a few minutes to listen on the bands late one afternoon recently
here in Forest Grove in N.W. Oregon, not far from Kevin, I hear the QRN
level steadily rising, just like turning the gain up. Humph! Someone's got
something noisy out there. Sssssssschttttt.....Rcccccccht!
Bzzzzzzzzzzzz.....  

Oh well, it's time to head down to the office for a meeting about 6 p.m. I
usually make the half-mile trip on foot from the house. 

Outdoors I see it. A tall column of cloud pushing upward, I learned later,
over 7 miles into the sky - almost 40,000 feet. Ash and dust and smoke and
steam from Mt. St. Helens. Nothing at all like 1980, but then there's not
much left of the mountain top to blow into the sky. No killing pyroclastic
flows. No massive detonations to level millions of trees. 

This day it's just smoke, steam and ash. People watched in awe. Airliners
cautiously skirted it. Instead of killing a forest and all the people and
creatures in it, Mt. St. Helens produced a huge electrostatic generator. Ash
rubbing against ash tumbling into the air. I'm told that up close at night
one can see lightning in such a cloud. A visual cacophony of flashes as
massive static discharges roar across billions of charged particles,
constantly releasing the energy of a steadily-growing electric potential. A
seven mile high Van De Graaf generator flashing in eerie blue lights.  

But this day it was full daylight. Just a big cloud. And some mysterious QRN
for those listening nearby on the shortwaves.

Ron AC7AC