TopBand: XV7SW Progress Report II

[Rolf T Salme]

Hi fans,

Adding a shielded loop plus the ANC-4 & NIR-12 to my receiving side has 
improved my reception on Top Band here in noisy downtown Hanoi. Here is what 
I have worked outside Asia the last few days:

VQ9ZX W0YG W7KW WA7LNW W6PBI AJ6T K6NA K6VX OZ3W OZ7YY SP8NR G4BWP G3KMA 
DF3CB G4DBN DJ7MI DK6WL S54E G3RBP GI0KOW G3KWK DL1AUZ DK8HG DJ2BW I2BBJ 
SK7AX G3RPB S57A KH6AT KG6I W6RJ N5KO W2VJN KA6W N6TR K6ANP W7TM G3OFW OK1MG 
OK1AMB ON7TK G3FPQ SM6MCW G4BUE EA3VY G3SED

I have been listening to the operation by S21XX. That is simply outstanding. 
I can start to _hear_ what they work about 10 minutes before my sunrise at 
0632z, but being fenced in in downtown Hanoi, I realize that I will never get 
near such performance. Unfortunately, I cannot put up fancy receiving 
antennas, for which I would have to occupy the embassy's tennis court or the 
ambassador's lawn. Sri, folks, I'll just have to continue washing my ears 
every day and muddle through with my loop.

I have gone through all the friendly requests for skeds mainly on top band 
but also on 80 and 40. The sheer number of those requests makes it impossible 
for me to honour all those individually, sri. However, today is the first day 
of our Tet holiday in Vietnam, and our office will be closed until Tuesday 
the 11th. So my intention is to be more active during my days off. After 
looking at all the suggested sked times, I have decided to try to be QRV 
roughly as follows:

160 & 80: 1100-1600z with priority to top band after 14z
          2300-2400z, most likely on top band          
          FQs: 1827 (QSX 1824) and 3506 or 3507 (regional monster on 3506)

40:       0000z until the band dies
          FQ: 7007, listening up or as specified

Some more news: I have always suspected that a lot of my noise emanates from 
the block of houses on the other side of the wall here. Recently, the 
municipality started to demolish those houses to make room for another lane 
for the nearby thoroughfare. And sure enough, some of the noise went 
with these houses. I am most grateful to the municipality for tearing down 
the block even before I had the time to ask them to do so.

But, alas, I also have to report a loss of my old ally, the Linh Bar, which 
is now gone. When you sit and comfortably run a pileup on 20, logging with 
CT, it is very easy to forget about time. It was so good to have Linh Bar 
visible from the shack, since they always turned on their sign at dusk, thus 
offering me a foolproof reminder that grey line propagation was imminent.

73,
Rolf
XV7SW


--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/topband.html
Submissions:              topband@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  topband-REQUEST@contesting.com
Sponsored by Akorn Access, Inc & N4VJ / K4AAA