Great HF Band Opening Today and Spectactular Fall Weather

 YOWIE! If you looked at the solar indices today you might be tempted to leave your radio off, but you'd be missing one of those anomalies where the indices look so-so, but the bands are wide open.

The Solar Flux is at 85, the "A" index is 8, and the "K" index is 2.

14MHz through 28MHz have been open all day from both coasts, with STRONG signals.

It's only the second time since we moved here that I've seen signals on the 12 Meter (24MHz) band, and the 17 Meter (18MHz) band (my favorite) had lots of good signals from all over North America.

I don't have my 6 Meter (50MHz) antenna up right now, but I should probably get it back up to see how it works with this radio. I only have my 20 Meter (14MHz) vertical to work with right now, as the 88' end-fed wire is acting squirrely, and the 14 MHz antenna doesn't pick up anything but noise on 50 MHz.

And I have to redo the FM Band antenna. I'm going to flip it around 180*, and mount it to a wood block I'll mount on the eave. That will get it up about another 7 feet, and out from under the eaves, hopefully allowing it to bring in stronger signals.

Sweet Little Wife is 95% back to normal, and has been going out shopping and visiting The Kids and grandkids the last couple of days. This I take as an excellent indicator of her health and well-being!

The weather here has been gorgeous the last week or so, with sunny skies, and 70's during the day, dropping to mid 40's at night. The trees are about half turned, and I'll try and get some pix in between doing chores and finishing up the KLH Model Thirty-Four. The parts I needed got here yesterday, but then I found out the stylus was broken, so I had to order one of those. Since all he'll be playing on this are 78rpm records, I ordered a stylus that's optimized for the groove characteristics of a 78, vs a 45 or 33 LP, which have much narrower grooves. I'm just finishing up the turntable part of the stereo, and it needed some attention besides the broken stylus. The grease had petrified after 50 years, and all the bearings were bone-dry, so I cleaned it all out and lubed them with synthetic oil and grease. The tracking force was set at 2 grams, too light to track a 78, so I'll readjust that and the anti-skating. I'll also have him bring over a stack of his 78's so I can adjust the tone arm pick-up and set-down positions, and the height for those thickness records.

I haven't even seen a 78 since I was a kid, so this is requiring some research so I can get it right.

Hope y'all had a great weekend!