As a newcomer to 160M dxing, I am near the bottom of the learning curve
relative to propagation on this interesting and perplexing band. Last night I
witnessed an anomaly that is maybe fairly common to veterans, and I would like
to
know if there is an explanation which utilizes minimum quantities of snake oil.
I went on at about 0500Z and found a moderate amount of EU activity, with
signals mediocre to weak. I easily worked everything I heard and was
considering
QRT when at about 0700 there were, fairly suddenly, several very strong EU
signals (I recall F5IN, I2Z??, and the ubiquitous DF2PY). F5IN was CQing
relentlessly, with only an occassional W6 QSO.I could not get a whisper from
any of
them and they were all working West coast only, giving out 449's and 559's only
to them. I heard other midwest and some eastern stations having the same
experience, some of whom I recognized as veteran DXers.
After making sure that the TX and antenna were still intact, I just sat there
scratching my head. This lasted for maybe 15-30 minutes. Then these stations
disappeared, or QRT'd (???) and there were a few normal (i.e. medium/weak) EU
signals which I worked with no problems.
Some real interesting non-reciprocal propagation going on here.
73
Eric K8LV
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