Okay - some people have complained that my reports are not living up to
their billing - containing way too much excitement. As always, we are
trying to improve the quality of our reporting, so I will strive to
meet your expectations.
Last night, I got home around 0215 UTC. And the band was....
TOTALLY DEAD. Well - except for HC8N.
The K index was 3 - and it seemed to have totally eliminated any signals
coming in over the north pole.
I saw a spot for US4EX on 1825 and I listened and heard a signal. Thought
maybe it was him, but it turned out to be ZS1JX CQing. He quickly attracted
a pileup and the propagation didn't seem to be with me - so I gave up on
that. I went back to watching the basketball game on TV. This was at 0320Z.
Around 0530 - I came back to check the band one last time - and was totally
surprised to hear DL7ON pounding in. He was peaking 579!!
During the next 30 minutes or so - I was able to work another dozen Europeans
just like it was the weekend. However, less than an hour later, the band
was all broken again and no more European signals were heard.
At least I was able to work 4 or 5 new stations I hadn't worked before.
Naturally - I expected the band to still be broken in the morning - and it
mostly was... except RA4LW was around and reported I was peaking 579 around
1430 UTC. Vlad was easy to work on a QSB peak - and I had at least one other
European calling, but I couldn't pull them out.
I am now convinced this morning opening to Europe peaks about an hour before
sunrise. As sunrise came around - I was just CQing into the wind - bored out
of my mind.
So - see - that wasn't too exciting - now was it?
Tree N6TR/7
Boring, OR
PS: If you would like to hear what this opening sounds like at its best, you
can download 40 minutes of audio from my opening last Saturday AM:
http://www.kkn.net/~tree/160/22-Nov-08-MorningEU.mp3
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