Wow, eight days of severe side effects. But today, better. Nineteen days off as I wanted to wait until after Christmas for my last treatment. I mean really, who wants to be sick on Christmas. Soon after that I'll start the radiation treatments and will see how that goes.
Late Friday night my corgi, Skye, had another seizure (her 4th). I was able to get the medication to her and this time halt the seizure and she seemed to come out of it much better. Afterwards she started exhibiting some rather odd behavior, going up to Russell, the other corgi, and putting her face close on his face which scared him as this is the traditional opening for corgi duels. He is eventually just had to run out the room because she wouldn't stop. Then she started following me around and I'm doing all these little things before bed and she's following around me house. I think this is probably the only dog who ever get better from having seizures. In a way we both seem to be getting along well.
On Friday afternoon, enlisting the aid of my neighbor Phil, we installed the new DX Loper antenna to the side of the house and to a nearby tree. As the sun set and the gray line phenomenon began, I logged on to the computer software to test the antenna. Using the MFJ antenna tuner I was able to A/B the first antenna up against the news Loper. Everything I tried suggested the original antenna 80 foot inverted L seem to out produce the new antenna. Tested this for some time and at one point removed the antenna tuner and directly attached the new antenna to the SDR radio. Same results for the Sloper antenna. it performed worse, and with way more static, than the original. Now the simplest explanation is the switch itself doesn't work or it has somehow been installed backwards. Considering I sent this unit back to the factory twice for repairs, it's certainly possible that mistakes were made. Or rather more mistakes were made. But now, set up the original configuration again, the Sloper in slot 1 and as long as I kept it on the original antenna second it seemed to work very well. I am at a loss to explain this meeting really makes no sense unless there is some interaction between the two antenna. However there is almost no point where these two even are mounted near each other they follow the same pass for about 2 feet before entering the house. Besides this is a RG-8 coaxial and is well shielded. My only other guess is, could possibly be that there something loose. But, this is premade and I checked every connection before putting it up and we were not rough and putting it up .
This morning I awoke early tell well rested and decided to see what the bands were like. It's just before six local time so roughly an hour before sunrise and that the beginning of the gray line path. Without fooling with the antenna(s), I just decided to see what, in the best configuration, what I could hear. One of the first things I picked up was a 1 kW station down in southern Mexico. I noticed that everything seemed stronger, clearer and easier to tune. I was able to get my wireless headphones and equalizer, all working and my signal chain was now complete even if inexplicable. One of the goals for setting up a second antenna was to be able to work the tropical bands, 120 m and 90 m. I was able to pick up WWV on 2.5 MHz for the first time. I shall continue to tease out this apparent paradox over the next few days and enjoy the fact that I have now increased my signal reception into my SDR.
Well it's now 9am, the traditional time to play guitar. My housekeeper is coming at 11:30am, so I’ll have to cleanup before she comes to clean up. Made Chili for lunch and now relaxing.
