It sounds like classic "spotlight propagation," Larry. Happens a lot on
160. I feel lucky to have experienced it several times over the last 58 years
on topband. The most memorable one for me occurred about 8 years ago on a
Saturday evening.
I called CQDX about sunset and didn't expect much because the usual early
spots by East Coasters were not showing up on the "Summit." Several Russian
and eastern European stations answered me. Reports were 579 to 599 both
ways. It continued until sunrise in the British Isles as I worked my way
across the continent. By that time reports were more like 449 to 569. I worked
about 100 stations. I hardly heard any stations east of the Mississippi
work any EU that night.
On Sunday morning I had an eMail from John, ON4UN asking me what I was
running last night because the only strong stations he was hearing was me and
K9DX. Well, for me it was a spotlight propagation burst... for John, K9DX
it was that fantastic layout he had. I was running an OMNI 6+ and a TenTec
Hercules solid state amp at 500 watts into a 520' horizontal loop at 50'.
Boy, was that fun!
73, Barry
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UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
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