[Lowfer] Saturday overnight

[JD via Lowfer]

Well, not totally overnight.  I didn't start this time until 10:30 PM, 
hoping to stay awake and catch the part of the night I missed 
previously due to oversleeping and the resultant computer battery 
discharge in the middle of the night.  It looked promising, as the 
median S-meter reading for QRN was 5, with excursions from 3 to 8.  
That's not winter conditions, by any means, but it's certainly not 
terrible for this time of year.  However, apparently, domestic 
propagation wasn't up to par either, despite the Europeans reporting 
good transatlantic conditions overnight.  XIQ was sometimes up to +1 dB 
reported SNR (plenty audible and hovering around S7 on the meter on 
those occasions!), but other times was closer to -20.  The only other 
station that decoded was XJM a few times.  By sunrise, static had 
dropped to under S2, but with occasional pops and crackles to S9 for 
reasons that will become apparent.

I forgot to bring the log file back to town to upload, but will 
probably have the opportunity/misfortune to do that later this morning. 
  "Misfortune" because it looks like a cluster of thunderstorms that I 
first saw on radar near KC three hours ago are continuing to creep 
south toward this QTH, despite a forecast of sunny and dry all day.

After XIQ went dark this morning, I intended to capture MP on 2200m 
through mid-day, but with what I anticipated to be temporary QRN, I 
decided to monitor 22m for a while first.  No HiFERs to start with, 
then NC showed up, followed by USC and EH.  By 9 AM CDT, the SIW duo 
were present.  Just as they were fading in, though, some event occurred 
just prior to 1334 UTC that wiped out everyone at the watering hole for 
just over a minute.  They all returned simultaneously a few seconds 
before 1335, about the same level as they were before the event.  No 
idea what the cause was.  NOAA SWPC doesn't show any significant solar 
flares or satellite environment events anywhere near that time.

If that quasi-derecho coming toward us holds together, I'll have to 
discontinue all monitoring before noon.  We could definitely use the 
rain, but the timing is always inconvenient.

John