Greetings fellow seekers of the 'Clean Sweep'
VY1JA sent me the following. with only 233 Q's it looks like ARRL may be forced
to offer a mug that says 'I ALMOST got a clean-sweep in the 2003 SS!' Big :-)
or perhaps for those who swept both weekends.. the mug can say 'The Few! The
Proud! 'The Clean Sweep!'"
(with humble apologies to the United States Marine Corps)
Jay's comments may prove of value to us for the 'next one'.
73
Chuck K3FT
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Chuck,
With conditions this poor, both Bob (VY1MB) and I (VY1JA) had very poor results.
His Multi-OP and my single op each netted only 230 QSOs. Both stations were
worked hard throughout the contest, with the exception that I had to stop to
teach TaeKwon-Do and lost the peak that happened from your sunset on
Saturday afternoon, and then I had to pick my son up from work and lost the
peak from the same period on Sunday.
It was during those two peaks, the ones at your sunset that we had 10 minute
periods of propagation from your area, but often people had their beams the
wrong way and did not stop to realize that the gray-line was with them.
Bob has those two brief runs in his log, but I do not.
Make sure that your people know how to use our sunrise and sunset time and
if there is a sunrise or sunset time in your area that is near it, we have a
gray-line boost that really makes a difference.
This year, our sunrise was at approximately 1715 UTC and sunset was at 0015
UTC.
I have asked Bob to send me an e-mail of his log and will carefully examine
the data. I plan to put together a clear set of guidelines for working NT
under conditions of poor propagation.
During the contest, I found that I could not maintain a frequency, because
even though I was posted to a particular frequency, I was not heard and
other stations in the south would take it away. Nothing wrong with this, it
just meant that our watery signals could not get through to those that
needed the QSO.
I was extremely pleased by the great ops that would just volunteer to give
up their run frequency to us and then post us on that frequency. It meant a
few more contacts until someone else in the south that did not hear us, took
the frequency over.
A few things will help
1 Watch the posts and work us immediately so that the frequency is not stolen.
2 List the sunrise and sunset times and especially the overlapping gray-line
times and aim your antenna the right way at that time.
3 Remember that we have one-way and most of the time even though we are a weak
whisper to you, your signal is strong here... Call even if you hear us just
faintly.
It was interesting that a number of stations in lower Canada experienced the
one-way propagation phenomenon for the first time this year and now understand
what it is and how it works. To many this has always been an
unbelievable myth. Check recent posts to the CQ-Contest reflector.
J.
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