Well - I have dragging my feet on making a report, but last night, four
Europeans made it into the log: SM5EDX, OZ1DD, DF2PY and GM0GOV.
The night before, Wolf was also worked.
As others have reported, the QSB has been very deep and long. For my
QSO with SM5EDX, he had to come back to me several times before he
peaked well enough for me to hear him. During the peaks, he was very
Q5.
I feel like the QSB is different for different people - mainly due to
location. This means that when the QSB is right for you, it is probably
wrong for other people. This can enable you to beat out stations who
have bigger stations if your timing is lucky.
It also makes for frustration when the DX station is sending and the
guy he is working thinks it is time to transmit.
Sometimes, I try to work the station quickly before the QSB gives out.
Otherwise, your only hope is that they will peak up again soon. I know
I was holding my breath a few times as the DX station took their time
getting around to sending me the RST. And of course, there is that lost
feeling when you hear the RST, and then send their RST - and then hear
nothing... except a CQ after another 60 seconds. I hate that.
I had a couple of "QSOs" like that last week. I know the DX stations came
back to me - but not sure they ever heard me send their report.
Such is life on the topband.
The Stew Perry results are back up in case you were looking for them.
They were lost for a week or so due to a server crash.
N6TR antennas on topband - a 72 foot loaded tower (80 feet to the top
of the mast with a 5 element 15 there) with about 32 radials (an increase
of about 8 over last year). I have one beverage pointing at 60/240 degrees
(reversible) that is about 1.5 wavelengths long. I have an old Viewstar
PT-2500A that has been basically rebuilt from scratch (pair of 3-500z)
that puts out 1500 watts.
You can see a picture of the TX antenna here:
http://www.kkn.net/gallery/album01/Image014
I did recently have a failure of my coax gamma match capacitor and had to
rebuild it. I think I might have accidently transmitted into it with a
KW on 80 meters.
See you in the pileups.
73 Tree N6TR/7
tree@kkn.net
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