Topband: Poor 160 conditions & TX5C

[George (K8GG) & Marijke Guerin]

Fellow Topbanders:

Have you considered how good the conditions were during most of the VP6DX 
operation?

Yesterday morning and this morning, 11 Mar 2008, the NOAA POES aurora index 
was about 9.  Lots of tomato red auroral disturbance!  I realize this 
greatly affects the trans-polar contacts where the great circle paths 
between stations travel above 60 deg N latitude or 60 deg S latitude, and 
may not have a direct bearing on shorter paths such as from TX5C to JA, but 
sometimes things just stink no matter how good one's RX and TX antennas 
operate.

Personally, yesterday morning around 1200 was FB for Oceana for me.  VK6HD 
was a true 599 for a few minutes at sunrise and TX5C was nearly 599 and was 
begging for contacts on 160 around 1215 zulu time.

YMMV.        Good luck & 73

George    K8GG