[NLRS] Interesting Tropo event

[Bill Davis Jr]

  Checked into the NLRS 2m net last night... conditions punky ... QSYed to 144.200 and N4LI EM55 was calling CQ. Worked him 5-3 reports much better on his end. The bandS were up and down until I went to bed at 1am. EM55(TN), EN10 (NE), EM29(MO) and EM39 were worked. EM55 and EM29 on 2,222,432 SSB with 5-3 or better. nil on 1296

  What was VERY interesting to me ... that it was 62deg and we were having what totaled 6/10" of rain DURING these tropo QSOs plus there was considerable lightning QRN from the rainstorms south about 50miles DURING the tropo. Lots of precip static off the antennas at time preventing and signals during copied. I have worked a lot of tropo ahead of wx systems, but never experienced anything quite like this. Normal is rain arrives, "QSOs leave!"

   One very neat QSO was with K0JXI in EM55 on 2m .... "Hey Bill did you ever live in Missouri?" .... "Well yes Dale I did." ...... We last QSOed on Dec 5 1967 while I lived in Columbia MO and he lived in Rolla MO... I was running mt 4XC250B amp that I had at AU back 5 years ago or so for the show and tell. I was running the amp "linear" on AM!  Good memory I guess!

  Still can't get over local RAIN for several hours and STILL tropo .... we had had a rain event 4hrs earlier that dropped the local temp from 81deg to the mid 60s.

Logger report >>>> 
Aug02 13:01z W9ZIH en51 IL wrked 432 & 1296          k5sw em25 ok

73  Bill  K0AWU  EN37ed