After waking up around sunrse (1330 ish), and never hearing any of the
good stuff being reported around 1100, I decided to take a day off from
work so I could get up at 4 AM (and get my taxes mailed).
Within a minute or two of coming up to the shack, FO0FI was in the log.
Good signals - and easy to work. 1824 kHz, listening up one.
Then the fun with YC0ADJ started. Heard some people calling around
1829 and after a few minutes, I could heard ADJ calling CQ on 1828.
He didn't seem to be hearing anyone and after a few CQs, he was
listening in the JA window. I heard lots of JAs up there calling
and he was hearing JA3ONB - who didn't seem to be hearing ADJ much.
I tired a few calls up there, but wasn't sure of the frequency.
After about 10 minutes of that, he returned to listening somewhere (he
never sent "up" which made it a mystery to me where he was listening
since no QSOs were being made).
He did come back to someone for a quick QSO, but not sure who it was.
After about 30 minutes of calling with him only working one or two
stations, (W0FLS provided proof where he was listening), my head was
ready to hit the table and it was becoming clear that this was pointless.
However, even when it is clear that it is pointless (take W4ZV's post
for example), the topband disease kicks in and you just keep calling.
It paid off and I went back to bed with two new ones in the log. I hope
that meant things were starting to peak for the west coast and more
made it through (congrats NI6T).
This was all done with the horizontal antenna and the ADJ QSO was
about 1:45 before sunrise. The ZL beacons were pretty strong and
they had been pretty weak at sunrise the past few mornings. I didn't
make it up at sunrise to check them this morning.
73 Tree N6TR
tree@contesting.com
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/topband.html
Submissions: topband@contesting.com
Administrative requests: topband-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems: owner-topband@contesting.com
|