Friends in Radio Land-
Jim Reisert, AD1C, gave some interesting results in his posting on
HEARD/USA QSO Statistics. From the propagation standpoint, there are
some items of interest:
1) the lack of contacts on 10 meters
2) the lack of contacts with W5s on 160 CW
3) the few contacts with W0s on 160 CW
as shown in his statistics, given below:
W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 W7 W8 W9 W0
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
15 CW: 59 89 67 187 88 4 5 84 123 103
15 SSB: 39 60 54 118 32 8 16 83 81 58
17 CW: 73 85 59 92 15 12 18 56 52 33
17 SSB: 146 181 110 268 103 15 23 148 155 104
20 CW: 246 353 224 615 354 443 246 308 320 273
20 RTTY: 49 80 40 124 80 65 51 60 75 88
20 SSB: 498 676 414 954 566 506 384 528 476 420
30 CW: 274 339 213 482 98 96 100 255 230 204
40 CW: 345 427 285 472 205 473 369 321 325 298
40 SSB: 169 162 124 164 21 84 108 118 107 89
40 SSB: 169 162 124 164 21 84 108 118 107 89
80 CW: 99 95 65 64 6 50 52 47 50 33
80 SSB: 134 113 56 55 8 42 99 51 43 45
160 CW: 54 40 27 15 0 6 8 20 10 4
SAT CW: 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 0
SAT SSB: 1 1 2 9 0 0 0 0 0 0
TOTAL: 2186 2701 1740 3621 1576 1805 1479 2079 2047 1752
The lack of contacts on 10 meters is just the fact that we're at Solar
Minimum and don't have the F-region ionization to support 10 m propagation.
The problems on 160 CW are not related to the level of ionization
up there; there's plenty to keep 160 m signals moving. Instead,
the problems really have to do with all the great-circle paths
from Heard which arrive in the USA close to the 106 W meridian of
longitude. During the DXpedition, those paths were fully illuminated
in the southern polar cap and D-region absorption took a heavy tool.
Check your mapping program to see where your path went; to have much
of a chance, it would need to have its southern-most excursion in some
darkness.
For those Low Banders who still need Heard Island, you'll have to wait
til there's a DXpedition in a different season. That might be a long
wait but there's no way to get around the power of sunlit electrons
in the D-region. They'll getcha every time!
73,
Bob, NM7M
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