Topband: Conditions this weekend

[Bill Hohnstein KØHA]

> "I'd like to hear some other opinions of 160M band conditions during the
> CQ WW CW contest.  I was not impressed here."

> We only worked 34 countries from my station in Ohio and it was a real struggle
> to get some of the usually easy to copy stations from Europe into our log. 

With a more polar path to Europe than those south and east of here, I thought
that I'd comment on conditions from Nebraska.  While it obviously depends 
on your local conditions and equipment environment, I thought that Friday was
not as good as I was hoping for, but better than I was expecting given the
geomagnetic conditions.  I'll let others rate this significance of this, but Friday
night had a very good Es opening on 6M to both the east and the west from 
here.  On Saturday, the geomagnetic environment was much worse and there 
was no Es opening...
I worked a fair number of central Europeans on Friday night and more eastern
Europeans than western Europeans.  Conditions to any of Europe were marginal
by 0700z.  The further north and east Europeans worked included RA6AX, 
UA6LV, RU1A and SP3BQ.
I was making a limited all band effort with preference to the lowest productive
band at night.  On Saturday night 160M conditions were to the point where much
of an effort didn't seem warranted...

73,  Bill     K0HA