Topband: JA sp/lp from east coast

[Peter Hutter]

Hello Topbanders,

I remember calling JH5FXP just after sunset in Princeton, NJ during
Christmas day, 1996 very well. I heard Jeff, K1ZM, operating from Cape
Cod
working him. Then  I decided to listen up into the JA portion of the
band to
see if I could hear JH5FXP and there he was, a  solid 579 signal! I
heard
him equally well on several beverage systems ranging from NE through SE
and
I thought this was a bit odd, maybe his signal was arriving at a high
angle.
At the time I did not realize that his signal was probably coming
through best from
the SE direction. I frantically set my FT-1000D's other VFO and waited
for their
contact completion. After they had signed, I began to call JH5FXP
towards the NE
direction on the 4 element rectangular transmit array a couple of times
with no
response. Then he began
to call CQ and I tried calling him on the eastern pattern several times,
but still he
did not hear me.  'FXP sent a few more CQs and I noticed he had begun to
fade and I
decided to call him with the SE pattern on the Array with no avail. By
this time I
knew it was too late for a successful contact. The next day I decided to
take a
listen for JA's via long path starting 10 minutes prior to sunset and
noticed the
conditions were not favorable, only the usual European stations were
coming through
that day. The band did not even open for JA long path during the
subsequent days,
because it was already a week beyond our winter solstice.

To this day,  I'm still kicking myself for not using the SE pattern
first when I
called 'FXP. That would have probably resulted in a contact with the
Japanese station
as far south as western central New Jersey via LP to date.

Peter WW2Y