Topband: PJ2T on 160 Meters: Europe Before Sunset

[Milt, N5IA]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Maass" <jmaass at k8nd.com>
To: "'Topband Mailing List'" <topband at contesting.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 06, 2010 1:36 PM
Subject: Topband: PJ2T on 160 Meters: Europe Before Sunset


<SNIP>

> Remember, this is from 12-degrees North of the Equator, in the bright 
> Caribbean sunshine
> and with ~85 degF temperatures! I wasn't able to get any stations to hear 
> me this early,
> but we could hear them!
>
> During the contest, twilight at PJ2T came 30 minutes after the contest 
> began, and full
> darkness came almost 1.5 hours into the contest period. We did not work 
> our first mainland
> European station (EA7SG) until 0024Z, almost 2.5 hours into the contest. 
> At the beginning
> of the contest, Europeans are feeding on themselves, and not listening 
> outside. We've
> learned to point our receiving antennas at North America for the first few 
> hours of the
> contest, as twilight moves slowly across the USA and Canada.
>
> 73, Jeff  K8ND
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff,

The exact same thing was noted from 24 degrees South and 124 degrees West at 
Ducie Island, VP6DX, in middle and late February, 2008.  Remember this is 
the equivalent of middle and late August in the northern Hemisphere.

Prior to the ARRL DX CW and the CQ 160 SSB, great signals from NA and EU 
were heard beginning a full hour before sunset.  In fact, some signals from 
eastern EU heard very well on 160 Meter SSB during that time period were 
never worked during the contest.

I don't know if the signals were copiable any earlier because the stations 
were occupied on other bands up until that time.  But suffice it to say that 
there is a one to two hour differential between the "hearing" and being able 
to "work" most  very distant stations at sunset.

Milt, N5IA, VP6DX, XZ0A