Topband: Pre-Sunset

[Robin]

not to belabor the point excessively, but.... when I was sailing up from ZL on Braveheart
headed to Mangareva on the way to VP6DX, I listened to the Friday night beginning of the
CQ160CW contest.  I had 100 callsigns scribbled down on a tablet in the first hour I
listened, and that was 2 full hours before sunset.  Hard daylight still when I got to 100
calls.  Then I fixed the antenna and got on and did work some folks with the rather low
and short antenna I could manage on the Braveheart-  We were about 1000 miles out as I
recall- a bit closet to Mangareva than ZL, but still deep in the South Pacific.

We have recordings of contacts made with VP6DX on 160 SSB with the eastern end in full
daylight...  Real contacts, not someone playing with a remoted station in Florida.  An
analysis of the VP6DX logs will probably show a couple hundred contacts with the far end
in hard daylight, and probably 25-50 or so with the VP6DX end still in real daylight

Admittedly it IS harder when both ends are in daylight.

BUT, if you are not ON, you CANT work the contact, no matter HOW good the propagation
is...

Robin, WA6CDR