It was a rather interesting evening as things unfolded. The tropo
foreast was for some local enhancement along the south shore of New
England, CT, RI, and Massachusetts. I was monitoring just before 22:30
UT and watched the W3CCX beacon hovering at about -120 to -110 dBm here.
As it got closer to 23:00 UT, I saw the peaks improve to about -105 dBm.
I was thinking maybe we might get some enhancement going later on.
Signals were pretty good but not out of the ordinary with some QSB
evident on signals. K1DY was on and sounded good from his perch in FN54.
I kept my antenna SW for our contact. KA3FQS called and had a strapping
signal here at S7, which is great. Five minutes later I worked WA3NUF
and Phil seemed weaker than normal. We must have caught the bottom of
the QSB cycle. I turned the beam on W9KXI in FN12, but we had about the
weakest signals that I can remember. His ssb was just abov e the noise.
So I figured that condx to the West were not good. Then I tried my
normal sked with Howard WA3EOQ. I tuned to the frequency and there he
was pumping the S meter up to S5. I was in shock. I don't think I ever
heard him that loud. His next sequence had dropped to about 529, but he
was still great copy. Often times, I get fragments of his transmissions
and need several sequences before I \copy anything. Tonight was the
opposite. He was loud and I heard him work the CT folks. He peaked up
again while he worked K1PXE and was a true 559 up here then. I wondered
if something was going on there. WA3EOQ is at 242 degrees from me. A few
minutes later I tried FT8 and was very surprised to decode K3SK calling
CQ with a -8 dB signal. Dave K3SK is at 225 degrees from me. There was
obvious enhancement in that direction. I tried listening for N1GC, but
heard nil on CW. I kept copying K3SK off and on all evening, but any
tries out West were fruitless. I could not make it to VA3IKE on FT8. I
believe that Ike did copy K1TEO and WZ1V. He never heard me, nor I,
him. Here is my log for the evening. QRB distances are in miles.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DATE TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE
PRO.REMARKS QRB
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
08/19/2025 22:54 WA1RKS FN32IN 559 599 220 MHzCW
TR 131
08/19/2025 22:56 W1AUV FN32II 559 220 MHzCW
TR 138
08/19/2025 22:57 K1DY FN54JQ 559 599 220 MHzCW
TR 125
08/19/2025 23:02 KA2ENE FN13FE -02 +09 220 MHzFSK
TR 331
08/19/2025 23:11 WW1Z FN42ET -02 220 MHzSSB
TR 52
08/19/2025 23:14 K1PXE FN31 57 58 220 MHzSSB
TR 165+-
08/19/2025 23:15 KA3FQS FN20JF 57 220 MHzSSB
TR 309
08/19/2025 23:17 W2KV FN20 57 220 MHzSSB
TR 286+- 10 watts SSB
08/19/2025 23:18 KC2KAE FN20XX 57 220 MHzSSB
TR 230
08/19/2025 23:20 WB2VV FN41 57 220
MHzSSB TR 150?
08/19/2025 23:20 WA3NUF FN20KE 57 57 220 MHzSSB
TR 308
08/19/2025 23:22 WA1LWC FN42EE 57 57 220 MHzSSB
TR 10 watts 90
08/19/2025 23:30 K1KG FN42ID 59 59 220 MHzSSB
TR 88
08/19/2025 23:33 W9KXI FN12NE 55 220 MHzSSB
TR 311
08/19/2025 23:36 W2BYP FN13IB 55 57 220 MHzSSB
TR 320
08/19/2025 23:43 WA3EOQ FM09JO 55 559 220 MHzCW
TR 502
08/19/2025 23:52 K3SK FM07TJ fn43 fm07 220 MHzFT8
TR 569
08/19/2025 23:59 W1AIM FN34 599 599 220 MHzCW
TR 126+-
08/20/2025 00:00 K2RMX FN20XP 599 220 MHzSSB
TR 247
08/20/2025 00:03 W1XIV FN34JJ 599 220 MHzFT8
TR 132
08/20/2025 00:04 K1TEO FN31JH 19 220 MHzSSB
TR 184
08/20/2025 00:07 N1SV FN42BL +11 +11 220 MHzFT8
TR 78
08/20/2025 00:11 W9KXI FN12NE +12 +04 220 MHzFT8
TR 311
08/20/2025 00:13 KA1OJ FN42EH +12 220 MHzFT8
TR 82
08/20/2025 00:14 KB2KIR FN22EN +02 -05 220 MHzFT8
TR 243
08/20/2025 00:17 NZ3M FN10PD +10 -02 220 MHzFSK
TR 372
08/20/2025 00:22 WZ1V FN31RH +10 220 MHzFT8
TR 165
08/20/2025 00:40 N3ITT FN20KL +00 +09 220 MHzFSK
TR 294
08/20/2025 00:44 K3WHC FN10PA +00 -11 220 MHzFSK
TR 377
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of QSO listed: 29 (W9KXI worked 2X on SSB and FT8)
Thanks to all who made it on 222 this evening
73
Dave K1WHS
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