I'm out of town this week working in southwestern Mississippi. Knowing that I'd be away from home all week I decided to bring my FT-857D (which I never use anymore at home), a power supply, an iambic key, a balun, assorted cables, and wire for a 20 meter dipole.
For the longest time I've been meaning to bring a radio and enjoy my evenings tuning around. The first night of traveling I was too tired to lug the stuff in from the van, but Tuesday night I stayed in McComb, MS, and was fortunate enough to be on the top floor (4th) of the Hampton Inn. I thought, "Great, couldn't ask for a better situation." To top it off, they screwed up my reservation and upgraded me to a suite, which meant double the typical room area - more room to spread out my antenna! In fact, the 33 feet spread out nicely.
Now, I didn't have high hopes for this setup and I figured that I wouldn't manage any contacts. But at home I can string a random wire out across the floor and hear stations with ease, so I figured I might have a shot. I didn't expect what happened.
I couldn't hear a darn thing. Not a single signal on ANY band. My noise level was pegged, S9+, so something was either generating a ton of noise or the walls were made of kryptonite. It was a brand new hotel, so who knows? I made sure that nothing was running in my room, no a/c, no tv, no fridge, but it made no difference whatsoever.
I've taken my radio to work, which has oodles of industrial, high-voltage machines running and had no problems picking up signals. Needless to say, I was more than a little disappointed to not be able to hear anything. I may try it again this evening as I'm staying in Georgia, just west of Atlanta. I'm on the bottom floor, but it's worth a try, I guess. Maybe there was something running elsewhere in the hotel in Mississippi that wiped everything out?
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