Funny, but I was QRV on 160 and found conditions rather poor here in
Maine. Very few signals heard and what I did hear seemed a bit on the
weak side. (SM4CAN and DL8DAS among others.) I heard Joel W5ZN work
Europe and I swear he was hearing better than I was. His 579 was a
stretch here with the SM4. I sent 549 when I worked Kent and I had to
repeat my call a second time so he got it correctly. I heard VE6WZ
calling the same stations and was amazed that he had good conditions
while I was struggling with sub par condx. I think my receive setup is
all working OK. The South was definitely the place to be. A was 3 and
K was 1 so things should have been good here, but you never can tell
until you start calling! I use a single vertical and a bunch of
beverages in the woods.
Very interesting evening. I QSYed up to the dreaded FT8 part of the
band afterward, and heard much activity. I worked a few stations then
went QRT.
Dave K1WHS
On 11/12/2019 2:09 PM, Artek Manuals wrote:
Here in the deep south we generally don't get the kind of 160M
openings to EU that you enjoy up north, the price we pay for not
freezing to death when the lights go out and being able to work on our
antennas year round, I lived in NH and MN� for 15 years before moving
back to FL so I know first hand the joy of shoveling snow and being
able to work EU when your 1000 miles closer to them than we are down
south. Down here we are lucky� hear 3 or 4 EU stations on a good night
regardless of the mode.
Then last night something extraordinary ( the night after Doug's
report) . I went out to the shack @0200Z� to turn things off before
going to bed . There was HA7TM calling CQ and the computer reminded me
that while I had worked him on many bands but that I needed him on
160M to fill out my dance card. A few minutes later he was in the log
and no other� EU stations were copied (YAWN)� .. then as I reached for
the big switch I was called by R6YY. What happened next I suspect is
what if sometimes referred to as� "pipeline propagation" . Stations
from NW Russia lined up and started calling me sometimes 3 stations
deep. When the dust settled I had worked 15 Russians, 2- SM's, an OH
and a SP, all in the span of about 30 minutes. You would think my call
sign was VP6R . During this mini pile up NO OTHER EU stations were
heard. No DL's, no F's, no G's no I's ..... just UA's . One of the 3rd
most memorable nights in my TOP-Band life-time spanning nearly 50 years
To fill in the scenario for the curious, I was running about 800 watts
to a 60' T wire vertical, with three 90' above ground radials. And a
200' BOG to the NE on receive. Modes used were both CW and FT8
Dave NR1DX
dit dit
On 11/11/2019 12:37 PM, Doug Renwick wrote:
Very good over the pole real ham radio (cw) conditions from Northern
Europe
last night in west NA. Some stations had amazing signals; a few of the
strongest were LY7M, YL2SM and LA1MFA.
Doug
Canada; the ship of fools where corruption and politics are synonymous
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