Topband: SM2CEW SP findings

[Peter Sundberg]

I got up fairly early on Sunday morning and was hearing a lot of good
signals from NA. The problem was getting their attention, guess QRM is
fierce over that way. Was pretty surprised to get a call from W1BB, and I
managed to work a few more new ones from NA.

After sunrise the amazing thing was that no signals dissappeared, they just
kept rolling in all day and the band stayed open! 

N7JW, N6RO, K7TJR, W7AT, N6TR, KB7Q, K9DX, K9NR are just a few of the
stations I was hearing very all day. At noon I went out to do some repairs
on my 144 MHz EME array, and when I came back in to the shack after an hour
signals were still steady from NA. This was about 1200 GMT.

Now N7UA was blasting in, heads and shoulders over everyone else. I called
him, as I called many others, but very few heard me. Guess they were all
using their directional antennas, pointing at Asia. So, everyone was just
working Asians, or calling CQ.. not expecting Eu to come through at that time.

Before the end of the contest I started hearing the JA's and the VK's that
were working NA. I made a note on my scratchpad, at 1335 GMT N6TR was still
a solid signal here with me, together with a bunch of others from NA. 9M2AX
was calling CQ on 31 and QSX on 12.5, and I was getting good signals here
from both ends.

BA4DW showed up late and was trying to work stations, but apparently not
hearing well. I could hear the VK boys calling him, but not many QSO's were
made. 

So, it was frustrating for me to some degree, but actually more
interesting, because these type of conditions are indeed rare. And when
there is constant activity in a contest, one has a chance to follow what it
going on very closely. 

The whole time I was using my top loaded vertical (TX-antenna) for receive.
As I have practically no local noise I can hear even the faintest signal,
especially as there was no propagated storm noise either. Just a very quiet
background, with the S-meter idling on minimum deflection when not
listening to CW signals. Mid winter conditions sure are different from mid
summer or fall, when static crashes constantly hit S9 +40db or more.

So, Sunday was kind of like reading the paper, sitting there all day going
through each "Top Band page" thoroughly, not to miss anything. 
Since then, K-index has gone up to 4 again, so conditions have been blown
away by the solar wind..  

Or, maybe I was just dreaming all of this..??! 

:-)

73/Peter SM2CEW
http://blog.sm2cew.com
www.sm2cew.com