Memorial Day listening conditions could have been better...

[Pigmeat]

Nothing but non-stop thunderstorms and flash floods here. Hope it was better for the rest of you folks.

[skeezix]

Technically better here as we had no flash floods. But we did have the thunderstorms with plenty of lightning. DGPS recording from last night was abysmal.

On the positive side, the power company came out today and fixed the stuff on the top of a nearby power pole that was creating a lot of RFI.

One source quenched, more to go.

[BoomboxDX]

Greece was in on 9420 khz, barely audible half the time. Two other stations on 31 meters, one I think might have been RNZI.

20 meters had two CW QSOs (both too fast to read), the JT65 channel was blasting away at S5, and maybe three SSB QSOs, only one that was above S3 in strength -- ironically, a guy from Texas talking to a guy in Hawaii. And I'm in the PNW.

Yet no other QSOs on an early holiday evening. This is why I think ham radio is slowly dying. Even the guys with rigs and antennas don't bother to get on the air when it's a holiday and conditions -- although a little mediocre overall -- are at least good enough that Texas and Hawaii can talk to each other. Obviously its wasn't the reception issue on my end -- if I could hear them, why couldn't I hear other guys from the 2nd most populous state talking to Hawaii or wherever?

Our hobby is taking strange turns this solar cycle.

[ThaDood]

My $0.02 worth? The summer doldrums early. I know that when I worked in TV broadcasting the biggest month in Nielsen Ratings was May (Go figure.), and every TV station would be down in ratings from the November sweeps. So, the biggest competition was the weather. It's nice out, who wants to watch TV? Radio habits are there as well. With all that I need to get done outside, with summer-like weather just exploding, I'm not on the radio much at all either. If I see Sporadic E open towards me, I'll check out 12M - 6M. Low bands? Forgetta'boutit... I hear nothing but lightning crashes, and it's been storm, after storm, after storm, then flooding. I'll be back down there, (Hopefully for Field Day 2018.), this Fall in October / November. So, my radio activities haven't dried up, (Totally.), but modified for the time of year it is. Just my take. Oh yeah, my other radio activities now are when I'm in the truck and I hear friends on 2M, MURS, and CB. Someday, I hope to try HF mobile again.

[Josh]

My dear Piggles, you're not in the path of that dreadful hurricane thingy are you? Look on the bright side, if major cities/regions get flooded, the auto industry will be thriving at the expense of the insurance companies due all the claims. Just like how the floods in Texas a year or so ago "saved" Detroit from collapse for one more year.

[Pigmeat]

And supplied used car dealers with a surplus of cars for years to come. I once bought a year old truck at phenomenal price about a year after getting out of HS from the used section of a legit dealer. There were no lemon laws in those days and when you drove it off the lot was yours. That thing was rusting out in under a year.

There was a guy who used to own a small auto auction about a mile and half from me. He was foisting used FEMA trailers on the public from those multiple hurricanes that smacked the Gulf in the last decade, around 2010. He was telling people they were "used camping trailers". No lemon laws on campers.  He was something.

[Josh]

Lotsa rain last night here in sw Indiana so the lawn is safe for a week or so, but no hurricanes to worry about, just tornadys. And yes, the pesky lightning strikes are a bane to a radio listener of the non - fm variety.

I once sent a IC-751 to a famous HAM radio repair place in Florida to have it modified to my specs. I had him put pin diodes in the noise blanker circuit (a H attenuator/switch as found in most any analog rig that has a noise blanker) and the result was a noise blanker that would entirely eliminate lightning strikes from the rf path. You could turn the nb knob all the way up with no distorting of the desired signal - but the elimination of all lightning strikes. Wish I never sold it, it was great for ssb dxing.