[CQ-Contest] Conditions during CQWW Phone 2008. was European sigs to W9

[Ffive VHN]

'allo, from the otherside of the pond.

I did a mono-band entry on 15m and I thought conditions were great !!!

76% of all my contacts were 3 pointers. In the morning the band was wideopen from JA down through asia , picking up some oceanie VK ZL (thats the other side of the world to us) Guam , down through the middle east to africa.  All this at the bottom of a very low sunspot cycle.

I was using just 500w to a 2el yagi at 120ft. In the evening the band stayed open late to south america. And there were a lot of loud signals. 
 Missing from here was Zone 3 never heard a single W6/7 or zone 2 VO2 (too far north ??). And 1 or 2 others that I just missed.

I found that the pile-ups were not very deep, I imagine that there were not many people active. 
It was nice to work quite a few '100Ws to a bit of wire' stations. I note down during the contest, the LOUD signals and the small ones and check after the contest (QRZ.com).

I noticed that the propagation was not symetrical, ie I could work JA but not W6, which is roughly the same distance and distance from the north pole. 

73

Rob F5VHN (op-F6KCP)

PS
If you worked me (F6KCP) and you remember the contact, could you drop me a mail direct with a report of my signal and audio. I was trying something new this year..... f6kcp(at)yahoo.fr (at)=@ 




Message: 1
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:51:39 -0500
From: John Warren <nt5c at texas.net>
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] European sigs to W9
To: Contest Contest <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Message-ID: <390455DD-5353-4629-A7DF-27E6CE005D8D at texas.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes

I'm somewhat surprised at the comments about poor conditions during  
CQWW/SSB. On the higher bands, sure, but what can one expect.  But I  
thought 40M was extremely good. Europe pounded in of course, but there  
were signals from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific, etc.  
Even heard Zone 26 (HS0AC), but never QSX up!  And Asia/Pacific kept  
coming in until 9.30am local here. The one path missing from W5 was  
the 40M long path SW to central Asia and eastern Europe just after our  
dawn.

Our local 160M gurus tell me that things were pretty good there too.

BTW, if you're copying this James - 9V1YC was a good signal into Texas  
on 40M Sunday afternoon (your dawn)  long path from the SE.

John, NT5C.