Topband: Boring Report - A25

[Tree]

Wow - wow - wow.  

Last night - the band sure sounded boring.  No DX signals were coming in.
I have been listening for RA4LW nightly - as this is the time of year he
is often heard just after sunset - but no signals yet.

Then we saw the spot for the A25 on 1822 khZ.  Of course, we heard nothing.
I didn't even hear guys in the USA calling him.  Only Europe seemed to be
hearing him.  

I fired up Spectran to "look" at the frequency and after a bit, I was 
convinced I was seeing something other than my neighbors computer.  Then
I started hearing some CW.  I asked on the Topband chat page if he was
really sending around 30 WPM and it was verified.  Then I copied a "25"!!

Around this time, W7LR came back up into the shack and he was hearing him
as well.  This was around 0305Z and Bob was able to put him in the log 
around 0312Z.

http://www.kkn.net/~tree/160/w7lr-A25QSO.mp3

I was able to make it through next and I am not sure any other NA stations
made it.  His signal faded shortly after our QSOs and by 0330Z it was 
totally gone.  I was able to work them on 80 meters at 0348Z (different
operator) and they were nice enough to confirm the QSO on 160. 

I am not sure which direction they were coming in best.  I was using my
70 degree beverage and transmitting using the 3 element array pointed at
45 degrees.

He seemed to be hearing very well - so if you can hear his signal, you 
should have a good shot at working them.  They were listening up 1, and 
Bob and I got through up about 1.2 kHz.

Best of luck.

This AM, VK3ZL was very strong around 1230Z - but no other DX was heard.

You can see some pictures of my array here:

www.kkn.net/~tree/gallery/wn

Tree N6TR
tree at kkn.net