Topband: great condx

[Paul Kelley N1BUG]

The topband season seems to be heating up at last. Maybe it's just a 
late bloomer.  :-)

As so often happens during the opening hours of a geomagnetic 
disturbance which happens to follow a long quiet spell, many signals 
were greatly enhanced last night. More northern latitudes and polar 
paths were way down from normal, but signals from southern Europe were 
absolutely the strongest I have heard this season. I had to wait for a 
call sign to know if I was listening to DX or a local.

It extended beyond Europe too. I was hearing bits and pieces of UK8DAN 
for a while. Had he not been under my 'growlers' I am certain he would 
have been solid copy and workable. UK9AA came on too, but as luck would 
have it Fedor also ended up under the growl and I couldn't get enough of 
his signal out of the noise. For those who don't recall, I have a major 
problem with computer power supplies taking out lower portions of the 
band. There are so many of them growling away it is hopeless to attempt 
a cure. I guess I'm lucky they don't take out the whole band!

North-south paths were probably well above normal too. Naturally CE0Z 
wasn't on low bands last night.

I did manage to get a new one... YS1CF. Not exotic perhaps, but I will 
take any new one I can get!

Some of us may want to remember to watch our sending speed when a 
station we don't recognize comes on the band sending very slowly. I 
noticed one (new to me) DX station last night sending around 12 wpm. He 
had several callers, most of whom were sending at nearly twice his 
speed. He picked the slower sending stations every time. When there were 
no more slow speed callers he disappeared. Food for thought?

73,
Paul N1BUG