Topband: Autumn Conditions

[Steve Ireland]

Since early March, propagation from this part of the southern hemisphere
into the northern half of the globe has taken an even bigger dive than
usual at this time of year, with only a few relatively poor openings into
Europe and North America.  The only exception to this is the regular and
strong signals from Tom W8JI from around his sunrise.

Tom's large/very high antennas, good QTH and amazing know-how seem to
enable him to beat propagation conditions which defeat every other signal
from NA at this time of year.

March saw reasonable conditions to into the eastern Pacific, a sometimes
tricky part of the world from Zone 29.  FO0AAA was finally worked on 7/3/00
after listening almost every day of the DXpedition - signals were peaking
S8/9, but prior to this had only been just above the noise.  Similarly,
Jukka VP6BR finally got into the VK6VZ log on 2/4/00, just on sunset here,
after trying for some weeks.

During the March - April, although there were several openings with strong
signals from the eastern and western USA around VK6 sunset, these were
brief and irregular, and by the end of March had disappeared.  European
signals had disappeared on a regular basis around the beginning of March.

On 30/4/ there was the first European opening of any scale for a month,
with LA3XI peaking at 599 around 40 minutes before sunrise and stations
also worked from DL and OK.  Luis IV3PRK was heard weakly at 449 at around
the same time.  The opening was brief, lasting around 20 minutes.

Vy 73,

Steve, VK6VZ



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