Over the past 5 nights - it has been possible to work Europe on most
of them (with the possible exception of last night). It is interesting
that the tables seemed to have been turned and the stations furthur
South seem to have the advantage.
Last night, there were some spots from California with comments like
"very loud" or "599" for stations that I couldn't hear in Oregon. Part
of it might have been due to the noise (it is raining again), but it
wasn't that bad.
It is always interesting to hear KH6CC working some Europeans that
I can't hear. I remember this happening 11 years ago as well.
Have listened to EA6ACC's frequency a couple of nights. N7UA did
manage a QSO, but he was having some problems hearing him. KC7V
also made a QSO - this was two nights ago. So far, not a peep here.
So, if you are in Southern California, get on the air and see if the
good conditions continue. Normally you don't think of March as a good
time to work Europe, but I would say the current conditions are better
than they have been for most of the year so far.
Trey, N5KO, was visiting over the weekend and took the morning shift.
He heard/worked 9M2AX both mornings along with UA0. This morning,
the band was too noisy to hear much of anything.
Trey had a funny thing happen on Saturday night. I was busy working
on the bathroom floor and he was "reading the e-mail" while listening
to GW4VEQ. There were some sixes calling VEQ, including N6CMF. Trey
was shocked when GW4VEQ came back to N6TR. He went over to the rig
and finished the QSO... but if I was N6CMF, I would think twice
when a station comes back to N6TR in the future! Maybe something
like this explains the VK0IR QSO and perhaps the 5U7M QSO I just got
a card for from the bureau.
We modified Trey's TS-850 for an external RX antenna. We took some
pictures showing the details of the modification and I will get these
on a web page sometime. It took about an hour to do everything (second
time I have done it).
Finally - it was great seeing the distribution of scores from the
Stew Perry event. It makes sense that GM3POI is on top, but the
other scores are from all over (#2 in Oregon no less!). It also
looks like we picked good power multipliers.
I have petitioned the ARRL CAC to think about adopting this format
for the ARRL 160. If you agree, you might contact your CAC person.
Also, I think we should run this event again next December for sure.
The soonest the ARRL could adopt the format would be 1988.
73 Tree N6TR/7
tree@contesting.com
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/topband.html
Submissions: topband@contesting.com
Administrative requests: topband-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems: owner-topband@contesting.com
Sponsored by: Akorn Access, Inc. & N4VJ / K4AAA
|