TopBand: Not much news from Oregon

[LarryX Tyree contractor for brentc]

As everyone probably knows, conditions have been pretty marginal
over the past 3 or 4 days.  A couple of nights ago, there were 
hardly any spots on the packet at all.  

Last night, there were some, but mostly east coast.  VE5RA was heard
making a QSO with IT9ZGY around 0430, and I could just make out an
occasional dit or dah from Peter, so that was an encouraging sign
that there was a little propagation.  It was two years ago last night
when I first worked Peter.  

This morning, I CQed for about 30 minutes around sunrise without
even a VK answering.  The ZL beacon (data signal on 1818 kHz)
was pretty weak as well.  At least the QRN wasn't too bad.

I found a great thing to do while CQing (other than reading e-mail),
which was looking for QSL cards for DXCC on 80 meters.  I am only
about 100 behind my 160 total.

Received a QSL for T31BB yesterday, and also got my TI9CF card
(via special courier service).  Carlos is reported to be working
on the cards and I think some people have received them.

Wonder when the XZ1N cards will hit?  Does anyone else think J8 is
hard to work on 160?  It is the only "real" country in North America
that I am missing (except OX).

73 Tree N6TR/7
tree@contesting.com


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