[CQ-Contest] info from VY1JA

[Chuck]

Jay provided this to me and asked that it be
distributed.

If it helps you garner a NT QSO.... great! if
not.. then it's good info, none the less!

73
Chuck K3FT
====================== 
In the 2003 SS contests, more than ever, common
propagation tricks were the answer. This year,
the sun gave us a very strong, though sometimes
invisible Aurora, covering a larger area than the
halo generally covers, both in phone and CW
events. 

The sun’s activities and the Aurora it produced,
combined to produce the following: 

1.Signals were weaker, especially on lower bands.

2.Sky noise was higher on lower bands. 
3.High frequencies were useless. 
4.One-way propagation effects made south-bound
signals weaker on North-South communication
paths. 
5.East-West signal paths were degraded or totally
removed through northern latitudes. 

Combining the Multi-Op log of VY1MB with that of
VY1JA only produced about 460 QSOs. Our sunrise
was at approximately 17:15 and sunset at about
00:15 UTC. This helped us with runs to
California, Oregon, Washington, Texas, New
Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma and other states, which
see us at an angle of about 315 degrees or more,
basically south of us.  

The closer your antenna azimuth angle became to
270 when aimed our way, the more likely you were
to only work us in a ten-minute window at your
sunset. Checking with other Sweepstakes results
here at VY1JA show that during years of good
conditions these periods were the ones that
netted the highest rates on the east coast.  

This should surprise no one, but under conditions
this poor, only a small handful of stations in
the east worked Yukon at all! With a window only
minutes long, if your antenna was aimed at right
angles to us, at your sunset, you missed us. 

For East coast and east central stations, find us
just before your sunset, aim your antenna this
way, and call us during the sunset window. 

For west coast and west central stations, QSO
time is unimportant unless you are QRP, then aim
for us at your sunset, or our sunrise or sunset
for a little added help. 

For most of the SS contests since 1991, I have
noticed that we have had one-way propagation at
some time during the contest if not during the
entire period. Bottom line… call us if you hear
us at all… especially if you are calling us at
your sunset, because most likely everyone in the
pileup is hearing us as poorly as you do unless
they are in California! 

If you want some experience at using this, we
have the RAC winter contest coming up after
Christmas in December. If you get in that contest
you just might notice these things working,
because we have such a short day with only about
4 hours of sunlight. 

In another vein… Special thanks should go to Bob,
VY1MB, president of the Yukon Amateur Radio
Association for hosting a multi-op learning
session at his station this year. Thanks also to
YARA members, Martin, VY1YT, Doug, VY1BD, Murray,
VY1MA, and especially to Dean, VY1CQ, who spent a
lot of time on the air who bob says made most of
the VY1MB contacts.  

Bob has a nice hillside location…. His station is
going to be stiff competition to anyone in the
section,including yours truly. 

If you have any questions concerning SS, or the
NT operations from Yukon, please feel free to
contact me  vy1ja at arrl.net.
==============================

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