Steve and all,
Heard you working the EU stations last night and the night before. You must
have had some fantastic and unique propagation! Could only slightly hear a
few of them.
As for the poor EU SR openings, they have been there, but from Arizona, not
a lot this year. During the CQWW in Nov, I worked about 10 Western EUs
during their SR and heard no others. It was about a SR 20 - 30 minute
window that I worked no more than 200 km inland from the European west
coast.
If the band is any kind of open, we do get an enhancement to Western EU at
their SR. There have been several in Dec and Jan. Think there was a deeper
EU SR opening for the West Coast about a week ago into DL, UA and some
other Central EU areas, but I was not around. As noticed, there was a peak
in TB propagation awhile back when the A & K were changing. Missed that one
too...
For me, being 500 km east of the Pacific Ocean, I / we do have better and
more openings to EU, mainly because we are closer. Some of us do live in
less populated areas with little or no noise and QRN which helps. Stations
just 500 km east of us have also a better path to EU. And stations even
further east into New Mexico and West Texas, have opening that are much
better that ours.
As for me, our SS offers very little, if any enhancement. Up to 1/2 hour
before our SR, we do get an enhancement to Asia, but over the past several
years, there has not been much.
Hope we get some great openings like we had in 2009 - 2011...
Ray,
N6VR
TX ant: 72ft top loaded GP with over 100 - 1/4 wave radials.
RX antennas: Hi-Z 4 square and a 400 ft long bev, 18 inches off the ground
pointed to EU.
On Fri, Jan 12, 2018 at 12:49 PM, Steve Babcock <ve6wz@shaw.ca> wrote:
> Last night at VE6WZ was an exceptional session for EU DX via the polar
> path.
>
> 61 EU entities made it into the log, some with exceptional signals. All
> signals were arriving via the “direct polar path” rather than the often
> “skew path” to the SE over SA. I was using diversity rx on the K3s-1000’ EU
> Beverage in left ear, 9 circle rx vertical array in right ear. TX- 90’
> shunt fed tower.
>
> Over the years on TB it has been very common for the “spotlight” to be
> shinning to the south and west…MT, AZ, OR and CA working the DX while I am
> on the sidelines with limited or no copy. It seems like last night was a
> strange reversal to this since most reports indicate muted conditions
> elsewhere. It really is remarkable how these openings can be so
> geographically selective.
>
> Also of note was the extremely fast QSB on most signals. It was imperative
> to keep the exchanges short since often signals would fade to no copy
> within 30-40seconds. Doing a simple point-and-shoot on the RBN cluster
> alone can be misleading, since the QSB cycles were about 1-2 minutes
> sometimes. It becomes the “cat-and-mouse” game….waiting for the QSB to
> peak, and then pouncing quick.
> Calling short CQs for an extended period is also important to allow
> callers a chance to catch a peak.
>
> The solar wind is still hanging in below 350m/s so lets hope for continued
> propagation.
>
> 73, de steve ve6wz.
> _________________
> Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
--
Ray,
N6VR
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