What could be worse than an A index of 46 in Boring Oregon?
Well, I remember lots of zeros in December with Stratwarms and I
couldn't hear anything. However, in between watching for any visible
aurora (none seen) and the comet (very nice), I kept an eye on
the band and convinced myself I was hearing a little of DF2PY on
1829.6 around 03:45 UTC.
Around 04:00, he was a little stronger, and by 04:15, I was copying him
almost solid! The stations in the SouthWest (Arizona and California)
seemed to have a better path as they all beat me out, but finally
Wolf came back and we exchanged 559's! That was at 04:20.
This is by far the latest I have ever worked Europe on the band
from Oregon. My last European was EA6ACC on 27-March. It is too
bad more Europeans weren't on the band. I guess the high A index
kept them away.
The dipole was slightly better for receive, so this might have been
a high angle QSO. His signal dropped very quickly after our QSO - he
was totally gone after 10 minutes.
Shortly after that QSO, I heard EM1HO calling CQ - coming in 569 on
1832. After I worked him, a number of stations called and he stuck
around for about 20 minutes working guys (eventually split). He
was there from 04:30 to almost 05:00. He was 569 - great copy up
here.
So, this just about has me totally convinced to ignore the numbers
and just spend time on the band regardless.
Today was also a good day for QSLs. UA2FF arrived for our QSO during
the ARRL 160 contest. I sent my card via DK4VW just like everyone
suggested, and it worked! The card was mailed from UA2. I also
received a quick response from HA8BE. The XZ1N card arrived about
a week ago (seems like most everyone has gotten it now). HP2/N6NT
is another recent addition.
Other recent QSOs include ZL2SQ on 4-April at 06:19, and JH0INP
at my sunrise - 13:31 on 8 April with 589 signals both ways.
See you on TopBand!!
73 Tree N6TR/7
tree@contesting.com
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/topband.html
Submissions: topband@contesting.com
Administrative requests: topband-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems: owner-topband@contesting.com
|