Topband: Down Under Diary - CQ WW CW

[Steve Ireland]

The CQ WW CW conditions were very mixed here in VK6 but fairly poor on the
whole - only a few QSOs with North America on the first night, and a long
but poor opening to Europe at sunrise, producing 39 qsos.

SV1NA was a good signal for around two hours, peaking S8, and the most
consistent European signal.  After calling him regularly with absolutely no
luck, I finally worked him first call when his signal had dropped to S4-5
and was at its weakest.  I guess there is a lesson here for contest working
on 160 - as long as you can still hear 'em, keep calling! 

Best signal from NA was K9NS, who was audible from sunset for several
hours, with the only other east coast QSOs being with K3LR, W8UVZ and W8JI.
 All these were difficult and took a number of overs/calls.  9M6AAC and
9M6NA spent some time on the band.  Although I could not find Jeff A61AJ,
to my surprise I found A61AO - and A45XR. 

The second night started very poorly, with S9+ bursts of static making the
topband unusuable after sunset.  When I got up at 3am local time for
sunrise, the static was down to about S8.  The conditions were very poor
and staticcy until about 25 minutes before sunrise, when the band opened in
a spectacular manner.  I spent most of this time looking for rare ones, and
the one I finally found was 9G5AA - a new country.

Also on the band during this period with good signals were ON4WW, Jeff
A61AJ, EX/UA3AGS, 4X3A and JY9NX, the first three of which ended up in the
log. 

In the end, my 160m log shows 45 QSOs, 24 countries and 17 zones.

On both days, the contest was hard work, but it was fascinating to see how
the 160m propagation changed in the couple of hours leading up to sunrise.
Only the high levels of activity that happen in contests allow us in this
very quiet part of the world, far from the major population centres, to
really observe this.

Vy 73,

Steve, VK6VZ



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