TopBand: 98/99 vs 97/98 Conditions to EU

[Bill Hohnstein K0HA]

Looks like I did about the same thing as saying that a station in
Minot, ND should have the same conditions as one in St. Louis, MO
since they're both zero's in my placing all of Italy in SOUTHERN
Europe.  I'm not too happy when that sort of thing is done...
Luis's (IV3PRK) numbers got me curious:  was I really correct in
my statement about conditons to southern Europe being down compared
to those further north this season.  I decided to compare the number
of Europeans (and a few nearby countries) that I worked in 1997/98
vs the same numbers in 1998/99 (with individual country breakdowns).
Looking at the numbers below, perhaps the opposite of what I
originally said about the southern Europeans looks to be closer to
the truth (as I would have expected with increasing geomagnetic
activity).  We all know without looking at the numbers that conditions
were down this season.  I guess that I let the larger number of
German stations active cloud my judgement...
To minimize the number of other factors also influencing these
numbers, I counted only the QSO's occuring between the CQ WW CW
Contest and the end of February.  Outside of that period I had a
greater number of factors limiting my amount of activity.



          97              98
PREFIX    98   RANK       99   RANK

  DL      94     1        59     1
  G       73     2        41     2
  SM      70     3        17     5
  OH      60     4         5    16
  OK      44     5        20     4
  I       41     6        21     3
  UA      30     7         3    22
  F       29     8        15     6
  ON      29     8         8    10
  LA      29     8         1    31
  SP      24    11         6    14
  9A      20    12        13     7
  S5      20    12        10     8
  PA      20    12         8    10
  OM      19    15         9     9
  UA2     13    16         6    14
  YU      13    16         3    22
  CT      11    18         3    22
  YL      11    18         1    31
  EA      10    20         8    10
  HA      10    20         7    13
  GW      10    20         4    17
  EA6      9    23         4    17
  EA8      8    24         5    16
  GM       8    24         4    17
  LY       8    24         3    22
  EU       8    24         2    28
  HB9      4    28         3    22
  EI       3    29         4    17
  SV       3    29         1    31
  OY       3    29         0
  ES       2    32         0
  4X       2    32         0
  CT3      2    32         0
  5B       1    35         2    28
  JW       1    35         1    31
  TK       1    35         1    31
  YO       1    35         0
  EW       1    35         0
  9H       1    35         0
  GI       1    35         0
  EK       1    35         0
  GJ       0               3    22
  ZB2      0               2    28
  LZ       0               1    31
----------------------------------
TOTAL    767             308


73,  Bill     K0HA






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