G’day
Oops. I meant from Western Australia the time between the Spring and Autumn (in
southern hemisphere terms) equinoxes is by far the best time to work into North
America and Europe, i.e. during our spring, summer and autumn. Yes it as noisy
as all hell, but the prop is there.
However, while the southern hemisphere winter (June, July and August) is very
poor for VK6 stations to work across into the northern hemisphere, the east
coast of Australia (in particular, VK3, 4, 5 and 7) can work across the equator
into North America regularly during this time.
Despite what the commonly used Mercator Projection map of the world shows,
Australia is as about as big as the continental USA – and eastern Australia has
very different propagation to Australia’s ‘left coast’, as the USA’s east coast
does in comparison to its west coast.
My recollection of what the great Stew himself wrote in his newsletters (and my
general experience) is that around the equinoxes is the best time to work 160m
for just about everyone worldwide.
I think four Stews is just perfect for increasing activity levels and
attracting DX, but if we were ever to talk about two, IMHO think these being
close to the two equinoxes would be the fairest solution.
Vy 73
Steve, VK6VZ
From: Steve Ireland
Sent: Friday, January 01, 2016 8:58 AM
To: topband@contesting.com
Subject: Good reason for multiple Stews
G’day
As a long-time supporter of the Stew Perry TBDC and donor of Royal Flying
Doctor Service caps, it has been great fun reading the various responses to the
Boring Amateur Radio Club’s innovation of the Spring Stew. Owing to the
organisers’ sense of fun, even the criticism was funny and fun to read!
One of the great things about the Stew Perry (or any contest for that matter)
is that it gives us a chance to operate for a whole night-plus and experience
conditions over this period – and learn.
This year was no exception – I’ve never experienced an all-night pipeline into
the Baltic in 20 years of 160m operation from Western Australia and to be able
to observe how the strength of the pipeline ebbed and flowed was fascinating.
A Spring (northern hemisphere) Stew is going to be very interesting experience
and I look forward to it.
Rick N6RK (I think) made a good point about southern hemisphere conditions. In
VK6, the period between spring and autumn equinoxes is the best time by far for
working into Europe and North America, but it is the noisiest half of the year
by far. We have many thunderstorms and the general atmospheric noise level is
high. Please run QRO in the Stew so we can hear you all ‘down under’/’down
south’ – that will help to maintain/increase participation.
Vy 73
Steve, VK6VZ
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