QSO PARTIES ARE "AFOOT".

 Looks like various States are having their QSO Party this weekend. I've heard people around Texas and Alabama on 40m so get yer ya-ya's to a radio and call CQ.

  

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Saturday morning I saw an online post from a guy in Texas who was ON-THE-AIR on 40 meters. I figured I'd hunt around with the TS-2000 and see what I could hear so I tuned my MLA to 7230 and heard a fella from Bexar County (San Antonio area) calling CQ and I tried to come back to him. Nothing. Nada. Zippo.

I moved up the dial a little and heard another station but like the first try it was 
Nothing. Nada. Zippo.

This seemed odd because even though I'm using an indoor MLA if I can hear them - they can usually hear me. So I switched to my inline watt/swr meter/dummy load (just to check) and could not see any output from my rig. Scratching my head, I realized that while it had been awhile since I used the rig, perhaps the watt meter was faulty. So, I put another meter in-line. Nothing. Nada. Zippo

Then I replaced the short coax cables - Nothing. Nada. Zippo

I guess everyone has had their own moment of panic and I certainly had mine. I tried every band (up to 440) and even both A and B radios with no success. AM-FM-SSB = Nothing. Slightly alarmed, I tried a 3rd watt meter. Nothing. Nada. Zippo.

Finally, I took a mental step back in order to get a grip on the situation. I reasoned that I could have inadvertently hit a wrong key or keys on the front panel which may be causing this symptom, but even after checking adjustments that could cause this I couldn't see anything wrong. With a processor laden radio like this it could have been something I did a month ago. Luckily there wasn't  a huge or even moderate investment in memories and settings so I did a full reset and ta da - all was well with the world, and my output was normal once again.

Just to prove my point of "If I hear them they will call" I heard W4UAL calling CQ for the Alabama QSO party and got him on my first try (using 20 watts). I received him with a 5-7 and he gave me a 5-9. Not bad for an indoor MLA...


It's Sunday morning - go make some contacts!


73
Woody