On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 10:42:03AM -0500, Bernie McClenny, W3UR wrote:
> I just spoke to Andrea, TY5MR, on 17 CW and asked about 160 meters. His
> response was "yes maybe maybe nw wkg ant". He along with his XYL TY5LEO,
> TY5WP and TY4TW are QRV from Benin through March 30th.
They finally peaked up around their sunrise on 80 meters and I was able
to work them there. They seemed to be doing pretty well with the pileup
on CW - so I am optimistic that they will be workable on 160.
A couple of nights ago, CN2R spent a brief amount of time on 160 at his
sunrise and thanks to living close to Jim, W7EJ (the operator there), he
kept his ear bent in my direction and I was able to work him for country
#200. Jim is there for the WPX SSB contest, and perhaps will spend some
time on 160 during this week leading up to the contest.
I kept hoping that this landmark achievement would allow me to put an end
to this madness. I would be able to take down the beverages and radials
and start leading a normal life. However, despite my intentions, I see
that the beverages are still up. Will the TY be the swan song for this
season?
VK6ABL was worked on Sunday morning - very strange sounding signal - due
to the high K index I am sure.
One other note, I have a few "space aliens" that drift around on 160. I
think they come from various pieces of computer equipment or touch lamps
either in my house or the neighbors. I use one of those MFJ phasing
boxes - but I mostly just use it as a way to switch in the beverages
into the coax going to the transceiver. However, the box works really
well for a point source and I can put the space alien into a deep null,
typically without putting a deep null on the DX signal.
Another useful feature of having 5 beverages is that I can make much
shorter work doing my AM broadcast SWLing. I can quickly determine
if a station I am listening to is coming from the same directoin of
the expected station, or if it is perhaps an unexpected station. Over
the years, I have logged at least one station for every possible 10 kHz
channel. Had a little cleaning up to do from 1610 - 1700 however. I
am sure someone mentioned using these stations for checking RX antennas
during the summer. I can also use various electric fences to check
my RX antennas. Some of them are very consistent, but not strong enough
to worry about DFing.
Tree N6TR
tree@kkn.net
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