[3830] CQ160 CW CE1/K7CA Single Op HP

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                    CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW

Call: CE1/K7CA
Operator(s): CE1/K7CA
Station: CE1/K7CA

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Chile
Operating Time (hrs): 22

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 661  State/Prov = 56  Countries = 44  Total Score = 647,700

Club: 

Comments:

This year it seemed like propagation was very different than normal.  Last year
was unique because there was an X class solar flair a few hours before the
start of the contest but not this year.  Friday night things started off
normally with PJ2T in the log about an houur before sunset and I started
working US stations around sunset. I even heard a few weak EU just after sunset
and thought that there would probably be a good EU opening at their sunrise. But
that did not happen. It seemed like there was a wall between EU and Chile
because I couldn't even hear any of them even though I heard stations up north
working them like crazy.  Also there was a lot of storm activity just to the
east of me in northern Argentina which made qrn levels quite high. However,
there didn't seem to be much of the normal Amazon jungle storm activity which
PJ2T noted made for very low noise condx much farther north. You can see where
the storms are from this map:
http://webflash.ess.washington.edu/AmericaL_plot_weather_map.jpg
A couple of hours before sunrise the Argentina storms died out and my noise
floor dropped over 20 dB.  So I thought there would be a great opening to JA
with such low noise.  Again, there seemed to be a wall between Chile and JA.  I
didn't even hear one JA. 
  Saturday night was a different story.  Right at sunset, with summer qrn still
low, the band opened up to EU. I was able to put 16 EU countries in the log in
the next hour.  I have a EU beverage at 60 degrees and a USA bev at 340
degrees.  I almost never hear EU on the EU beverage because signals are almost
always skewed north and the 340 bev is better.  In fact, EU signals almost
never can be heard on the EU beverage.  But Sat night at sunset the EU signals
could only be heard on the 60 deg EU beverage. That is a new bev that I just
put up this year so maybe that happens often at sunset and I'll have to study
that path more. However, about an hour after sunset, EU signals dropped and
could no longer be heard on the EU beverage and were starting to be skewed
north again with much weaker levels.  The rest of the night, there were no more
EU signals heard on the EU beverge, just like normal.  I wonder if this effect
has something to do with the intense ionization south of the equator forming a
vertical gradient which skews the 160m signals around the gradient which makes
them come from the north instead of NE.  I have noticed that I get
transequatorial propagation beginning an hour or so after sunset here on 6m
quite regularly.  
  Again there was little Amazon storm activity and when the storms in northern
Argentina died down a few hours before sunrise there was almost no summer qrn.
But unfortunately, the JA path just did not materialize.  Only 3 JA stations
made it in the log.  Just when you think it's over, about 2 minutes before
sunrise, I got called by DU7TET.  He wasn't strong and it took about 10 minutes
to get his call but he never gave up and we finally made it.  
There was quite a lot of South American activity which is really great to see.
Special thanks to CE6SAX for the rare CE mult (at least for me) and also RI1ANF
for getting in the contest.  Hopefully the new plaque for top southern
hemisphere score will continue to add some excitement to a normally difficult
operation down here.  This may be one of my last years contesting from here as
I've decided to sell my 7 acres on the beach but it may take a couple of years
to sell. Plans are to be down here again at least one more season. Thanks for
all the contacts.  73, Al CE1/K7CA


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