Day 2: Propagation Does Matter

(this should have been posted yesterday due to the breakdown of Internet connection)

Should amateur radio members need a soothsayer when it comes to propagation? At day two today, we experience a quite significant change in propagation from morning to high noon. We could not perform any kind of qso / communication in just about any mode at any band. It has been a common sense, though, among amateur radio members that the quality of propagation would be quite different when we compare it between daylight and evening. At evening, it’s the time when communication using radio of this kind would be of the best possibility for success.

Curiously enough, It also coincides with internet connection here. The other day, I managed to make an Internet connection using wifi through my laptop. Using Connectify, it’s just a snap to make turn it into a hotspot. Then I could send just about anything to social media and even blog with it. it goes the same with my BBM that I ported the connection to the wifi. So it could be just as normal as using the usual carrier, exept sending sms and phone call. However, a friend accidently remove the power plug to my laptop, leaving it powered by the internal battery and still acting as a hotspot. As the laptop battery went completely drained, I lost connection to the Internet. It’s the time when I figure out that my laptop could not log in to windows. It keeps rebooting again and again. I try to do some workaround but I come to conclude something wrong in the bootstrap. It’s for me to fix it back home.

However, Agus Gunarso (YB1LZ – the QSL manager) told me that up to this morning we managed to make contacts with 1.192 stations from all over the world using CW and phone (the voice mode of the communication). Seeing this result, he believes that at least we could get 2000 stations at the end of the Special Call. Hat’s off to the operators who keep working, even until early in the morning.

For the whole day, people here are pretty much intact at the location. Some guests came in and out. Most of them are fellow amateur radio members. The propagation started to get friendly again at about 12.30. That’s when qso at 10m was able to be started again. We surely hope that it’s gonna get better in the evening.

Approaching the night, it was a mild rain here in Gunung Puntang. Everything was fine except that at night the weather turned to be extremely cold. I walked out from my tent to see the CW operators and finding them still keying the codes.

Tomorrow at 5th, it’s going to be the D day. I expect more people would come to visit, especially for the fact that it’s Sunday. (I feel like I lost a lot of detail to write).
Fyi: as my laptop is out of order, I have to write this using iPad and WordPress app. The apps doesn’t seem to be able to handle image in proper place and that this could be for the first time I blog using WordPress on iPad :(