Topband: Conditions on 160m last night

[Milt Jensen]

Ken,

We worked you early on, perhaps 30 minutes later than usual, and heard your
station well all night long from way out west.  The band did not open for us
to the 1/2/3 call area until quite late.  No europeans heard.  EA8BH was the
best DX heard.  Very few Canadians heard in the "SSB portion" as most of
them were in the sacred pasture.  Nothing east of PQ was worked.  I heard
VE1ZZ work XE1RCS and that was it.

The conditions to the New England area did improve later on and we ended up
the night with all states worked except DC and ND.  The first time ever in
this 'test that I have not heard/worked KH6 and KL7 the first night.  To my
knowledge there was not a station on the band from those areas.

The biggest problem was a lack of stations on the air; period!!!  Yes, there
were stations spread out up to the upper portion of the 1.9 segment but not
nearly as many and as far as 5-6 years ago during the low part of the SS
cycle.  What will we do during the next 5-6 years?  Yes, it seemed it was
easier to obtain and maintain a run frequency.   The reason was because
there were not enough stations on the air with decent propagation.  The
sacred pasture was a wasteland of a few red neck and uninformed stations who
"bothered" FOUR, yes FOUR, CW signals during 16 hours of ONE NIGHT.  I made
it a point to continually scan the lower 43 during the entire night's
contest in order to be informed "real time" regarding my comments to K1ZM
earlier this year.  Four CW signals all night long with one of them being a
"CQ DX" station who called endlessly with no response.

For us (multi-op at W7MCO in AZ) the first night of 16 hours yielded 372 Qs
with perhpas 25-30 % coming from our great friends in the Golden State; 53
states/provinces and 8 DX contacts (carib, XE, TG, YV, etc.).  Perhaps
tonight will be our turn out west.  There was absolutely NOTHING from the
Pacific.  You know it is really bad when Jerry, WB9Z, pulls the plug and
goes off the air at about 1300Z.  Let us all hope there are a LOT of NEW
Saturday night and Sunday morning operators for session two.

Sincerely, and with all due respect to Bill and Jeff, but the ill conceived
band plan is NOT the best plan for the western 2/3rds of the continent.

Milt, N5IA, part of the learning team at N7GP