Topband: 4W6A on Topband

[David Raymond]

Some (not all) NA topbanders awakened to fairly good Topband propagation Tuesday morning with 4W6A.  It seemed like spotlight propagation for the East Coast.  Some prominent topbanders with good receive capability heard nothing while others had good enough signals for QSOs.  It came down to being in the right place.  However, quite a few NA stations had success.

I arrived at the rig around 10:30z.  I was only getting occasional hints of 4W6A.  My 4 sq TX array is experiencing 3.5:1  SWR (think the Comtek controller got bit by some lightning) so I could not transmit on it.  However, I could still hear well on it.  Signals were extremely weak.  Fortunately, my noise level (in between some crashes from a nearby rain system) was very low.  As the copy improved I finally put in a call on my backup 1/4 wave vertical.  He came back with the report but I was unsure of the QSO.  I finally called a few minutes later when he was not working anyone as the copy improved to 449 and made a good Q.  I listened mainly on the 4 sq TX array although I did some listening on the 8 circle RX array as well.  In this instance, the TX array was hearing best (primarily because the absolute signal levels were so extremely weak) but diversity with the 8 cir would have been nice (no diversity RX here yet).  

In summary, they seem to know when to get on Topband and are hearing quite well.  Hopefully some of the propagation in the next few days will be more broad and not be so focused on small pockets.  

73. . .Dave
W0FLS, in Iowa