Things I Learned Today: Google Print, Rain Drops, and Antenna Testing

Let's start with the good news: the little desktop Rockmite made a QSO with K7ZAD in Farmington, Utah today.

While this was happening though, the reverse beacon netork detected absolutely nothing. I learned that the RBN is A tool for testing antenna changes, but kinda obviously, not the ONLY tool.

I also learned about rain! I'd read that rain clouds do not attenuate HF signals. I had my doubts since I hadn't been able to make QSOs or even hear many other stations during rain storms. Turns out though, as explained in HRWB 168 - Audio for Digital Modes with Michael Black, rain drops make static, so effectively the noise floor that I'm hearing signals against is increased.

And finally, I tried printing the QSL card templates via Google Docs rather than Microsoft Word, and it did not work.. Google Docs is limited in the size of pages it knows about, and the USPS double postcard is not one of Docs' known sizes. Apparently there is a plugin that will allow this, but I'm loath to suggest that to others, especially before I've tried it out.

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