after reading all the comments by others concerning their experiences with
propagation during the cq160cw contest over the weekend i reviewed my log to
see what was going on since my experience was so different---i found that,
after i deducted the usual suspects that are always over s-9 nearly everything
else was typical of spotlight effect---for instance in one 20 minute time slot
18 out of 22 contacts were from WI and another time similar results from
FL---remember that i only operated search and pounce--similar results were for
PA and WA with surprisingly few CA and almost no northwest stations
heard--practically no new england stations were heard--in fact nearly all the
QSOs were from within 700 miles of my QTH--normally i hear and work many weaker
stations that are well below s9 but they were simply not there to work--in fact
it seemed like there was not as much activity as i expected and there were
numerous large multikhz holes on the band which is hardly ever the case--both
PJ2T and KV4FZ had the loudest signals i have ever heard from them while a JA
opening simply did not occur---the only conclusion i can reach is that the
geomagnetic storm reported on spaceweather.com was affecting 160 meter
propagation in an unusual way--- and only stations with certain transmission
characteristics were propagating and their signals were not subject to the
normal amount of adsorption --doing only hunt and pounce gets pretty boring
but i am no good at QLF and do not type well left handed--if it was not for my
AEA morse machine i would not be able to operate cw at all
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