Topband: Top Band Magic Again!

[charles Lewis]

What a surprise!  
 
I found the 160M QRN level to be down a little last night and decided to give it a try.  It took many CQs before my first contact, which was with SM6CCO.  In the first half hour I made only eight contacts and was about ready to QRT when VE3DO came out of the noise. A pretty good run of North Americans ensued.  Some of the best signals were from west of the Mississippi!
 
Here is an alphabetized list of all the calls I logged last night.  I hope they are all correct.
 

5Z4DZ

AE7H

AG8B

G0TSM

K0RF

K0YW

K1DT

K1FZ

K1GUN

K2NV

K3UL

K4JLD

K4MQG

K4WM

K5UR

K8RYU

K9BWI

KE9I

KF3B

KV0Q

KV4FZ

N0AV

N0FW

N0STL

N0US

N1AC

N1JP

N1SV

N2ZX

N3NA

N4ZO

N5ORT

N5TY

N6SS

N7UA

N8GZ

N9IW

N9US

NO8D

NW6S

OH2PJ

OH5BM

PY2DO

PY2PA

PY2RO

RX4HZ

SM6CCO

UA4HTZ

UA6CW

UA9KAA

V51AS

VE3DO

VE3NE

VE3QAA

VE3RM

VE3ZI

W0BV

W0FLS

W0JX

W1FV

W1GL

W1IBQ

W2LK

W2RU

W2VO

W3GH

W4FQ

W4GF

W4OW

W5IZ

W5OZI

W5UN

W6RJ

W7UT

W8FJ

W8HB

WA4TT

 

You can see that there are numerous stations from the western states in the list.

 

If you were in there calling and didn't make it, it was not due to QRM.  I worked worked nearly every station that emerged from the QRN sufficiently.  There were seldom more than two stations at a time sufficiently above the noise to be objects of my interest.  More commonly, only one at time was readable enough through the noise to attract my attention.  As usual, I did not hear a pileup. The QRN is nearly always your competition here, not the "big boys!" 

 

My usual QRN of the constant "grind" type was down a bit, but I still had very frequent sharp static crashes.  As a consequence, I needed numerous calls from most stations in order to piece together their call signs.  A few stations missed out again because I couldn't lead them to give me the many, many repeats of their call sign that I needed.  

 

One mistake many stations made was to come back to me with a complete exchange after I had sent only a partial call followed by question marks.  Under my  receiving conditions, it is better to concentrate on my getting the call sign correct first before sending me a report.  I can usually decipher the numbers of a signal report through the noise much more easily than the characters of a call sign. By sending the RST repeatedly before I get your call sign, you waste some of your time in the propagation spotlight and increase your risk of fading away before the exchange is completed. 

 

Another interesting thing about this very magical opening was that my pennant was totally useless this time.  The transmitting antenna was the receiving antenna for all these contacts.  The pennant heard little but noise.  It will usually be at least as good as the transmit antenna, but not this time. 

 

I was fully convinced the season was over by now for any good openings to North America.  One never knows!  That's what keeps the fascination radio holds for me alive after nearly fifty years as a ham.

 

 

73,

Charles Lewis - S9SS 

 

http://groups.msn.com/s9ss



		
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