A belated post due to lots of activities. So finally, yesterday started with clear skies and just a light breeze. It wasn't calm for long though, and the rest of the day and following night we had 12-15 m/s winds gusting above 20. I was out early in the day and took a few photos:
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| View from the house |
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| KONG-HQ. A longwire starts from the pole in the front left |
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| Leftover seagull after migration? |
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| Pointing north |
When I checked the signal levels via remote control at alt-Loran in the morning I found - nothing. Not one signal present. Since we record continuously, I could go "back in time" to see what had happened. It turned out that the day before, 10 minutes before we drove to Berlevåg (and actually passed the alt-Loran site), the signals had disappeared. We weren't checking alt-Loran at that part of the day because nothing interesting is heard then. And we had been there 3 hours earlier to replace the battery and SSD.
Conditions weren't the best so we probably didn't lose much interesting DX. Anyway, the most likely cause was that the antenna wire had somehow detatched from the transformer, and that proved to be the case when we arrived there a few hours later. So, a quick fix.
DX-wise we did get the impact from the solar disturbances. Not much to report, really. So instead:
We had a visitor! Finnish DX-er Jim Solatie drove up from the northern Finnish DX sites Aihikiniemi and Lemmenjoki to pay us a visit. Not very coincidental, we had planned to have our signature dish King Crab with Carbonara that day! He arrived at 17 local.
So, lets talk about eating! For starters, we had goose liver paste on bread with fried onions and prunes. The main course was king crab baked in the oven at 250 degrees C on a bed of sea salt. Pancetta replacing the bacon improved the carbonara a lot. For dessert: True vanilla, cream-based ice cream with forrest berries.
Jim had brought some excellent wines for the dinner. We started off with a champagne from Gosset, Zéro Dosage. Gosset has a wine-making history that spans from the 16th century. Jim did a good job in selecting the white wine as well, a 2023 Chablis Premiere Cru from Domaine Laroche.
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| This is what proper king crab with carbonara looks like. |
We spent the rest of the evening discussing Jim's recent project, DX-ing, TIS stations, geopolitics and whatnot. It was past midnight local before we called it a day.
And for those who don't know how we look like (and would like to know), here is (from left) Jim, Ole, OJ and me.
Today Thursday we noted that conditions again were so-so. There was some problems with alt-Loran which can wait until tomorrow's post. Quite a lot of wind, but dry and partly cloudy. Around 6-8 Celsius. So we had a long breakfast with Jim, who went on to Vardø later on. Just as breakfast was over another visitor, LA9VFA Olav Skår showed up. A 250-km return drive for coffee and a nice chat. That's dedication!
More about today tomorrow!
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