Before the expedition began, I proposed that common darkness
would be a good predictor for propagation when I wrote the following
(on 13 January):
"I would guess the probabilities are as follows:
"Common Darkness" Probability (my guess)
>60 minutes "Excellent"
>30 minutes "Good"
>zero "Marginal"
<zero (neg #) "Unlikely"
The results show I was fairly accurate. The reason for no
5's and few 0's is that there was never common darkness on either the
sunset or sunrise path. As expected, we also saw that propagation
to stations on the margins became better near the end of their
trip since the amount of common darkness increased. W0's and W5's
may have to wait for an expedition in March which may be unlikely
because of the onset of bad weather at that time of year. But as
we all know, every dog has his day and you will have a better shot
at some other area to offset your bad luck with Heard! All of us
who were fortunate should be thankful that the guys had a decent
antenna and power, were knowledgeable 160 ops and were persistent
enough to be there every day. That's what it takes to be successful
on this band! Congrats to VK0IR and the lucky 184 W's who made it!
73, Bill W4ZV
P.S. Some of the district data is probably wrong. W0CD is really
in W8 and not W0 for example.
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