Topbanders,
A pretty good session began about 0530Z with the east coast at 579 peaking
599, and some strange QSB on the NW RX antennas. Then about 0610 I thought
I had lost a beverage in the phased pair to "critters" as the noise dropped
abruptly about 10 dB. Switched to the transmit antenna and it was quiet
too....not the usual S5 noise level, but the meter was bouncing around S1,
strange.
I called CQ DX again, listening on the transmit antenna as I was by then
sure a deer had taken out one of the pair on North America....W6OAR came
back, with many under him also calling, some W6's and W7's, and it sounded
like 10 metres, no noise, just signals. I switched back to the beverage
pair and signals popped up like I had never heard them before. 579 signals
calling and sounding like Europeans, with a band so quiet I thought it was a
dream. It was hard to resolve calls as there were so many, a mini-pile up,
then N6FF rose out of the pile and peaked at 589, W6OAR called again and was
599....I had to be dreaming, in 20 years on Top Band never such a low
background noise, and such strong west coast signals....then as the local
dawn got brighter, the noise came back, not as strong as usual, but the
signals faded and all was back to normal.
Anyway, maybe again tomorrow.
73
Bob G4VGO
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