Hi Top Banders
I was dabbling in the CQ WW contest last night (Nov 24 UT) and noted a
few things that seemed quite different to me here in NE USA. The normal
situation at my sunset occurred. I could hear many many EU stations but
almost none of them could hear me. I am used to that. I quit and had
dinner and spent some quality time with the XYL for the evening. At
about 0300 UT I was QRV again. A storm was blowing through New England
and There was a fair amount of lightning static, but I was able to call
many stations who were very good copy, but almost always got the
impression that I was barely audible with them. I am running 1300-1400
watts output. Most stations took three or four calls to get my call
correct. A few gave up and had my call wrong but went on to other
callers. Other loud stations CQed in my face. This was very different
from many of my past experiences. I actually went and checked the
electrical passband of my TX antenna to make sure it was performing
normally. (It was) I also kept looking at the wattmeter to make sure
that I was transmitting into the antenna!
I did note that there was deep and rapid QSB over a 30 second period. I
am wondering what the hearing conditions were in Europe Saturday night
on 1.8 MHz. I suspect that noise was a big problem.
Around 1000 UT until my sunrise arpund 1200, I did a fair amount of
listening but heard very little in the way of Pacific DX. I was
operating un assisted so do not know who was QRV, but tuning across the
band produced only two HI stations heard from the Pacific. No KL7, no
islands, and no VK/ZL. A few CQs produced no QSOs for points. Very
disappointing morning.
73
Dave K1WHS
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