Topband: XZ0A Finally!

[Bill Tippett]

        At 1130 I set my receiver to 1826.5 using my 210 Beverage and
turned the speaker on while doing E-mail etc.  About 1145 I start hearing
traces of him.  Nobody is calling but K3RR is ragchewing with someone
on 1828 as I hear Joe sign his call.  Then I plainly heard XZ0A answering
Joe (but of course Joe was not listening on the XZ freq).  He is about
449 here so I decide to call on 28 knowing that is where he is listening
and hopefully my call will alert the guys there.  XZ0A calls Joe
again but no response so I call a few more times.  At 1155 he comes back
and even sends my name!  By 1205 he was back to his usual 339/229
but with a humongous pileup calling.  The third time was the charm for
me after hearing them very well and regularly on their second trip!

        Here are a few observations for those still chasing:

1.  They seemed to be hearing well today on 160.  For him to have heard
me with his signal only a 449 on my Beverage, their RX ants must be working
very well and they have apparently learned which direction to listen for LP.
This was not nearly as strong as they were on their trip last year but
they could not hear well then so they have greatly improved their RX
situation.

2.  I believe there may be correlation with disturbed geomagnetic
conditions and the sunrise/sunset long paths.  The K-index was 0 at
12Z today but it could be there is some aftereffect of yesterday's K4.
Here's a note I sent to K9LA on January 17:

> Based on this (referring to my study of 3W5FM reports on 80 meters),
>I'll make a guess that we will not see good LP propagation until
>the 24-25 Dec (Jan 20-21) or 31 Dec-7 Jan (Jan 27-Feb 3) bumps return
>on the 27.5 day cycle or unless we get unexpected disturbances of K3 or
>greater!  Time will tell...

The bumps I refer to are the A-index readings you can see on this chart:

http://www.dxlc.com/solar/

        Anyway, let's keep track of the openings...it will be interesting
to see if we can correlate with anything.  Good luck to all and I hope
they continue hearing as well as they were today!

                                                73,  Bill  W4ZV



        


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