Topband: Boring update - Stew - XMAS and Snow

[Tree]

The last 5 days or so have been far from Boring.  Of course, with XMAS, there
are family things to do...  but after I got our neighbors out of the house after
dinner on Thursday, I was able to sneak down to the stream and hook the end back
up on one of my beverages before it got dark.

We had a lot of snow and a little bit of ice in the middle of it - which took 
down almost every wire antenna I had - including my beverages.  I spent most
of Thursday and all day Friday getting them back up in time for the Stew 
Perry contest.  I even had to replace the coax going to the European Beverage
as a large tree fell across it and it ended up looking like this:

http://www.kkn.net/~tree/gallery/album26/Snow_December_2008_050

As some of you know - I have been getting up around 1330UTC daily and calling
CQ to see if the morning opening to Europe is there.  I would say that 80
percent of the time, my signals are being heard somewhere in Europe.  About
half the time, I am able to hear signals coming back.  About 25 percent of 
the time, I am able to work a handful of stations.  And about 2 percent of
the time, signals are excellent with a large number of stations in the log.

It will be interesting to keep an eye on this during the next 3 weeks or so,
as we move away from the darkest nights of the season.  So far, the best 
signals I have heard during this opening were on November 22nd.  Here is a
sample signal from that opening:

http://www.kkn.net/~tree/160/UA4HAU_Nov_22_2008_Morning.mp3

During the Stew - I was able to work six Europeans at the start of the contest,
which was always my dream.  Howver, the European openings on Saturday were
not as productive as I had hoped.  Signals seemed better the night after
the contest.  E77DX was S9 on my meter last night.

Still - there were some interesting things happening during the Stew.  Here 
is a recording Vlad, RA4LW, sent me of my signal one hour after his sunrise:

http://www.kkn.net/~tree/160/k7rat_1hr_daylight_RA4LW_StewPerry2008.WAV

I also put DL6RAI into the log about an hour after his sunrise.  I heard
this DL station calling for like 10 minutes before his signal peaked up
and we were able to make the QSO.  

I wonder if having a couple of feet of snow melting help my ground situation?  
I pretty much had swamp like conditions with lots of standing water for the 
whole contest.  Maybe this was my "vertical on a beach" experiment without 
having to leave home.

In installed the VE7CC software on my computer last night - in hopes to catch
the elusive JD1BMM station on 160.  It appears there were active only for short
periods of time on a couple of days so far.  The JD1BMH operation was very 
active during the Stew and again this morning on 80 meters.  Harry, JG7PSJ is
doing a great job putting that call on the air.

73 es HNY!! 
Tree - N6TR
Boring, OR