Topband: Last Night on 160

[Herbert Schoenbohm]

Dear Fellow TopBanders:

In all my years on 160 I have never heard anything like it for a non
contest night.  In a few hours last night parked on 1.823Khz I was
working waves of Europeans almost like 40 meters from 0400 to 0600Z.

A total of 50 European stations, most of them eastern European, were
worked.  Many were the inverted L 100 watt type and most gave me a
report of either 599 or 589. (Two weeks ago only a few could hear me and
with difficulty.)  There were some 579 but nothing below 569.  4X4NJ was
worked with a 599 both ways near his sunrise and both SV8ZS and SV3RF
were worked with thundering signals.  Many reported working the Virgin
Islands for the first time.  Conditions must have been exceptional even
though my local QRN level was relatively high,  The RX antenna was a 500
foot terminated Beverage running straight east.  However, most of the
stronger signals could be worked on my shunt fed tower used for
receiving as well..

I would like to believe that my top loading by placing a 204BA on top of
76 feet of Rohn 25G contributed to this, at least in the TX department.
  But the strange thing about last night was the signal level of the 100
watt inverted L stations as compared to the big guns from Europe leading
me to think  some unusual propagation enhancement last night brought the
QRP stations up significantly out of the noise making them appear to be
very close to the big guns out of Europe in signal strength at times.

I know my reports are unscientific real world reports but I pass them
along for what ever it is worth.

73

Herb, KV4FZ
St. Croix, VI