Topband: 3B9C topband report Mar 28/1430-29/0215z

[3B9C]

    Conditions were somewhat better tonight than Mar 27-28, but not yet back
to the level of previous days.  We worked 90 stations, including 3 new
countries, of which 55 were in North America.  3B9C now has 83 DXCC entities
on 160m ... and we are hoping to hit 100!

    I was on duty for sunset at starting CQ at 1330z.  No success on our
sunset attempt to work more North America west coast.  In fact the buoy
beacons that we've heard on previous evenings were not audible until after
1415z.  At 1430z I listened down to work JA, but only one was heard (and
worked).

    QRN levels built to intense levels for much of the night.  Mike G3SED
took over at 1630z for a 4-hour shift during the Europe opening.  Nothing
could be worked.  Mike heard a handful of stations calling, and attempted
QSOs with some, but it was obvious that signal levels were down and everyone
was having trouble copying through the noise on both ends.  At 2030z I took
over for the remainder of the night.  Shortly after Europe signals improved
and 21 were logged in dribs and drabs.

    At 2321z K1FZ popped in with a loud signal.  I think he was the one I
struggled with the previous night at about 2350z unsuccessfully -- but
tonight he was not only loud, but also very early.  That QSO was 31 minutes
before any other North American opening had started during the preceding 8
nights.  I jumped to the contusion that we were in for a long session of big
signals.  Boy, was I wrong!

    In fact, we did not get that "flip a switch and the band fills up with
signals" effect at all.  After RRR TU with K1FZ -- nothing!  I really can't
explain it -- just no propagation whatsoever to North America and no one
heard for the next 35 minutes.  But it was obvious the ionosphere was
restructuring: all that heavy-duty QRN just dropped away to almost nothing
in the next 15 minutes -- just a dramatic change.  I looked at the
ionospheric model built into DXAtlas (unfortunately I don't have PropLab's
ray-tracing program here) and saw that the finger of F-layer critical
heights drops down 50-100 km at this time, right around that area off the
Somali coast where our first control point would be located... and would
guess that our signal was now being ducted over Europe (bypassing the QRN
source) and exiting in the Atlantic somewhere.  K1FZ had his receiver on
early and it paid off.

    Interestingly, Mike G3SED was on 80 cw at the time I worked K1FZ.  I told
him the band had just popped open to North America with a big signal and
very early, and he said that 80 had just filled up with North Americans at
the same instant.

    Finally at 2353z 160m re-opened to North America with extremely weak
signals.  This was not anything like what the team has experienced in
previous nights.  There were occasional local static crashes every 5 seconds
or so, and in between one could hear a crowd of stations whispering their
callsigns just above the ambient noise level.  Occasionally some station
would whisper slightly louder, enough to get a callsign fragment and attempt
a QSO before they faded back into the crowd.  Folks were nicely spread out
but I was flipping buttons all the time to open up the filters to find the
next slightly-stronger whisperer... quickly tune in his frequency, and then
usually forced back into narrow filters to separate his rapidly declining
whisper from everyone else during the tail end of the QSO.  A few had to be
erased from the log when the confirmation couldn't be completed.  After 47
minutes, the band closed again -- not a peep was heard starting from 0040z.
One very persistent WA5 got into the log during the next 22 minutes by
getting through half the QSO at one point, and the second half about ten
minutes later when his whisper crept back above the noise again.  No one
else was heard until 0102z.

    Then the band re-opened for another 9 minutes of whispering.  It was appa
rent the gallery of whisperers was spreading west with the terminator.  The
band closed for a third time from 0111 to 0139z with nothing heard.  There
was another whispering session from 0139-0153z.  The sun rose and we were
finished logging.  I pressed the F1 button 200 more times over the next 20
minutes and declared that it was time for the morning jog along the beach
with Tony G3OSP and then breakfast, shower and nap.

    This entire session has been recorded.

    During the entire time Mike G3SED had a great run of North Americans on
80m, but that band did close a bit earlier than usual.

    So... pretty marginal conditions.  But we are, as always, hopeful for
better this coming sunset and will be on again starting at 1330z.  K3NA and
G3SED have the duty tonight, and both of us (manning two receivers) will be
listening during the North American opening as discussed in earlier emails.

    Two more topics:

1.  We got a message from K2VUI saying that we were pretty deaf but S-9 on
1827 until about 2340z.  We were quite concerned about early-onset
deafness... but we just checked the transmitter as it was left at dawn, and
looked over all the log entries (where both TX and RX frequency are recorded
by the computer).  3B9C transmitted on 1822.37 kHz the entire night.  The
Topband team here concludes that the signal on 1827 was a parrot.  I worked
all of the North America stations listening around 1827 and never heard any
trace of the parrot back here in Rodrigues.

2.   VE3OSZ sent a note detailing when he heard us and when (and what
states) he heard calling us.  His list of times when people were calling us
corresponds exactly with the times that the band was open.  It is clear that
when we heard no one calling us, there was... in fact... no one calling us!
That was pretty cool.

    Thanks to many others who took time to drop notes about their
observations in line with our two experiments.  Obviously conditions didn't
cooperate for either of the two tests, but we will try them again tonight.
We hope many of you will take time to note when  you first hear a detectable
3B9C signal.  When we get a night with that flip-of-the-switch propagation,
we'll correlate the observations and report back.

    See you tonight.  Sorry for the long note but hope it gives you a sense
of our experience here.

-- The Topband Team
    Mike G3SED  Don G3XTT  Eric K3NA

p.s.: All three of us are rotating out on Thursday.  We will be training the
new team that replaces us on what we have learned and hope the transition
goes smoothly.  Mike, Don and I all have a vested interest in training these
guys well: we all need 3B9 on Topband and we will be back with you calling
in the pileups from our respective home stations!