Misadventures in Amateur Radio

For the last few days I'd been receiving poor signal reports on HF after initially getting good signal reports after I started operating on HF back on 4 October 2008. I was beginning to wonder if there was a problem with the radio or the antenna. What really topped things off was when I said hello to Heyward, KT4RW on 40 meters this afternoon. Heyward lives over around 307 and I-16 and told me he couldn't hear me very well.

This evening I finally found out why I was getting the poor reports like the 22 I got from W4TDC on 17 meters. Back on 11 October, my father, AF4KL was using the 897 to try to make a QRP contact on 10 meters. To operate QRP, of course, he dialed the power back to 5 watts. I forgot to dial it back up, so I've been working on 5 watts for the better part of a week!

Mac McCormick III, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net