Topband: JA sp/lp from east coast

[John Kaufmann]

Jim Jarvis wrote:

> So the question:  What has the top band experience been?
> When I was in Vermont, with a full sized elevated 1.8MHz GP,
> I listened on 160 whenever 80 was open and I could work folks LP.
> Never heard anything topband, and suspected that was because nobody
> was there to be heard.

The only station that I'm aware of who has worked JA long path from the USA
is K1ZM.  During the mid-1990's, I heard LP JA's on several occasions during
December and January just after local sunset from my QTH in eastern MA but
was never able to work them.  The direction was SE except one time when the
path was some kind of skewed long path to the NE.  The problem from the US
is that the path from JA to Europe was always open at the same time and I
could never break through the Europeans who had a huge propagation
advantage.

My experience on 80m is that the LP to JA is best during low sunspot years,
so maybe we'll start to see those openings again on 160 in the next few
years.

73, John W1FV