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Re: Topband: 160 Conditions

To: <k2xx@swva.net>, "Tom Boucher" <tom@telemetry.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Topband: 160 Conditions
From: "VE6WZ_Steve" <ve6wz@shaw.ca>
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2011 09:22:12 -0700
List-post: <topband@contesting.com">mailto:topband@contesting.com>
For the record books, and to further the study of 160m propagation, it is 
interesting to note that last night was NOT exceptional here at ve6wz.
In fact, I was at the radio most of the night and only worked S51V during a 
5 min. peak, and then the band was gone to EU.
Most of the night was spent listening to NA working EU that I could not 
copy.
I was very disappointed since the solar wind and high latitude K were both 
low which indicated good conditions, but at this QTH I was shut out.
Clearly this opening was not a blanket covering "all" of NA.
Perhaps this suggests that there are "local" or maybe "patchy" ionosphereic 
conditions that will limit openings to certain areas while otherwise the the 
band remains open across the continent.
It could simply be my northern latitude, but Tree and others are even 
further west and apparently had a good opening.

At ve6wz, the best EU propagation on 160 was Dec 16 and 17 with 15 EU in the 
log those evenings.
This season has been very poor on the lowbands compared to the last 3 years.
Each winter season, beginning in September, I start a new DXCC count on each 
band.......I don't think DXCC will happen this year on 160m.
For the last 3 years, DXCC has been worked easily on 160m.
( I have a chart at the bottom of this page: 
http://www.qsl.net/ve6wz/dxcc.htm summarizing the lowband counts over the 
last 11 years)

Lets all hope for another NA opening tonight....especially one which extends 
northward into VE6!!!

73, de steve ve6wz.

>  Yes, last night (~0500Z) conditions were about as good as I've heard
> them here this season.  As many have commented, conditions on 80 and
> 160M have been unusually poor this season.  But 80M seemed to have
> awakened a week or so ago and 160M now seems to be following suit.
 

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UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK

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