Well, I certainly hope condx were poor or something is wrong over here.
Worked 50+ EUs but none were what I would call strong. SM4HCM right at my
sunrise was easily the loudest but the noise here today killed me.
Got up at 20:30 for JA/VK sunrises but noise level was 10 db over nine. Heard
some vy weak signals on the band but with the beverage and preamp they
disappeared entirely...beverage obviously in wrong direction for whomever they
were. Soooooo after 30 minutes of listening to white noise gave up and went to
sleep for another 3 hours.
At 00:00 UTC got up again, another can of coke, and EU was readable only on the
beverage and pre-amp. To K8GG and W0CD thanks a million. At about 01:00 the
big fade again like yesterday but this time it was not accompanied by the North
American opening (what little it was yesterday). Did work VE1ZZ but I got to
tell you, half was esp, he was just not as loud as yesterday and when I changed
off the beverage to the regular antenna...nada....
But I kept at it until 20 minutes past sunrise when I logged ON7GB after almost
15 minutes of cqing without an answer. Noise only got worse!
Oh well, 3 more AMs. You guys are not praying to the top band mullah enough.
Off to bed...gonna skip work this AM...got to get some shuteye
oh yes, worked Canada on 12 meters yesterday...cg1yx...Bob was booming
in at 13:07 UTC Lots of USA on 17 too earlier.
Will do it again tmrw...20:30 for pacific/vk; 00:00 for EU/NA.
As a sidebar, the IC781 has a loop for an external antenna AFTER the TX/RX
relay...really neat, one wire out to the preamp/beverage box and then in again
so I can even use the preamp on the inverted L or easily switch to the beverage
without messing with the radio. Kenwood could learn a thing from this idea.
Nitey nite over there....
Don
wb2Don N Dubai or did the FCC give me a new call?
A61AD
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/topband.html
Submissions: topband@contesting.com
Administrative requests: topband-REQUEST@contesting.com
Sponsored by Akorn Access, Inc & KM9P
|