Topband: Band coming alive

[Jim Brown]

On Sat, 21 Aug 2010 20:41:46 -0500, David Raymond wrote:

>Topband brought a nice surprise this morning here in Iowa with a QSO with 
>Topband stalwart Bobby, VK3ZL, coming through the QRN with a nice signal.  
>With the poor sunspot activity lasting this far into the new cycle, maybe 
>we'll have another good season.  Last season yielded remarkable over the 
>pole openings here in the Midwest with Zone 17, 18, & 19 being often 
>workable (sometimes daily) both morning and night.  

I've had a rig on 160M for a week looking for stations with whom I can 
exchange signal reports on a new antenna. So far, except for about an hour 
during NAQP SSB Saturday night, the only station I've heard is W7OE calling 
CQ, and a JA that he couldn't raise. I wouldn't call that alive, I'd call it 
dead. I made 15 QSOs during NAQP. 

People talk about how they love 160M, but they only want to work DX, they 
don't want to give encouragement to a newbie making his first steps on the 
band.  

73, Jim K9YC