Dear friends,
first let me also express my best wishes.
Peacefull Merry X'mas and a happy New Year 1998 to everybody.
Tried to play Santa a bit the last two nights.
Condx were in my opinion a bit down, static noise level
on the other hand unfortunately up.
23rd a week opening into the left coast gave me some nice
contacts again. 1.5 hours of continuous calling from 1230Z until
1400Z were only responded by RA0FA, before Pres N6SS was showing
up at 1420Z. Nice to know him to be home after so much contacts
with him as VQ9SS. The sun was moving up further North - then
in a string W7LR (thank's for first zone 4), K6VX, N7UA and
N6TR were following. Finally sunrise reached Canada and for the
first time I got the Canadian Westcoast into the log, after Jack
VE1ZZ found me two days ago from Eastcoast. Bob VE7BS, Rod VE7FPT
and Jim VE3IY/7 (Jim, excuse me struggling to get your call together -
I'm really getting old :-) were worked shortly after each other.
Yesterday at Christmas Eve poor condx and a horrible static
level were testing my ears. Was continuously on the band from
1410Z until 2245Z. The night began with a bang - first CQ was
immediately responded by Bruyce KH6AT, thank's for KH6 and
zone 31 (#23 this season) as new ones. Then unfortunately
nothing anymore (except some nevertheless nice local 'seasonal'
contacts) until a very short JA opening (20min)at there sunrise.
At about 2140Z I've got some response to my CQ's. The next 30
minutes I was hard struggling to get the callsigns together.
I believe I've heard the complete alphabet at least twice, before
I was responding to W1J? at about 2200Z. Interesting - didn't
hear any European before and didn't expect Eastcoast this early
under the poor condx. Beside this I was looking for Egon PY2BW.
Nevertheless - finally Joe W1JR made it into the log.
10 minutes later I got another one together - if my ears are
not too bad it must have been W1WAI.
It's already hard to grab the Eastcoast out of the noise, but
if more than one are calling zero beat on top of each other
(This was my impression last night) it's a mission impossible.
Beside this - the QSB was more a flutter - parts of the call
were only readable for some parts of a second peaking quite
nice - but to get it together I have to collect and integrate
all the peaces over a long time. So - do not send your call
only once or twice, that's only QRM here :-)
That was the end - somebody started calling CQ on top of me
from Europe and I went away.
If you 'Eastcoasters' don't mind - I will start listening
QSX at 1818 this night. If you have any suggestion for a
better TX frequency for me (in the range of my antenna
bandwith - 1815 .. 1845), don't hesitate to give me some
advice.
I really have to get the Slinky's up here....
Will spend my holidays (nights) mostly on the radio -
hoping again for some nice surprise.
vy73,
Joerg YB1AQS (Loc: OI33QL)
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