I have been reading this thread of comments with interest and here are
some of my observations.
From down under, in VK3. during this contest so far, I have been very
surprised at the good signals heard when compared to the recent pre
contest days. That is to say, not great, but good to NA in general from
east to west, carrabian and canada and good to JA and other Asia and
good to the northern Europe region (but nothing from Africa or southern
Europe, like Italy, Gemany or UK).
Interestingly signals were only good, not at my SR or NA SR time, but
about 1 or 2 hours before the usual SR peak time and so this odd
behaviour maybe be due to the recent solar activity.
Of course, this good signal time would normally be missed were it not
for a contest and on a non contest day, operators would listen for the
usual SR peak and be dissapointed and say TB is dead.
And as we know, TB can be very spotty, good signals in one location and
poor in another nearby location and in our region last night there was
only me and two VK6's and one ZL active, so we will never know the real
picture.
Of course, in such a contest, there are always a few big signals who
don't hear others calling, like me and I can only put that down to
either bad qrn and qrm at their end or the use of directional rx
antennas and not bothering to listen in my direction and this is always
frustrating, but that is the reality of a contester down under.
I have been active this year a lot during the pre contest days and it
seems of recent days it is normal for TB, to have one good day and then
two or three bad days and so I never know what to expect for tomorrow.
Maybe tomorrow will be a great day or maybe it will be worse or maybe I
will be plagued with qrn from the storms up north in our tropical region.
So far, this contest has been much better when compared to a bad year,
but no as good as a great year and hopefully it will continue to
surprise me.
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UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
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