Topband: SP conditions

[Tim Shoppa]

I felt results to EU were average to above average. I was very surprised
and pleased when two EU's were among the first replies to my CQ's.

I was very surprised in other direction, in initial hours how few
midwesterners were calling in. Usually I rack up several W9's with my first
CQ's although it is well before their sundown. Pretty soon I figured out it
must be thunderstorm activity in midwest.

In initial hours I was not hearing much thunderstorm noise myself, but for
a while around 0300-0400Z there were a couple times I ripped my headphones
off and threw them on the ground myself, the lightning noise was so bad,
even though I was far away from the bad weather. Other than that hour I did
not feel hindered by thunderstorm noise myself, but I'm sure a lot of folks
were scared to even plug in their antenna.

I worked a couple loud and easy W6's and W7's but not many at all. I think
this may have been a very rare year where I worked a lot more EU than W6's
and W7's.

I just looked at my reversebeacon reports and I feel I did very well to EU,
much better than expected given my few reversebeacon spots in EU.

Last night (night after Stew), SM5EDX had huge signal on 160M and I worked
him easy with 100W.

Tim N3QE

On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 2:24 PM, Art Snapper <art at nk8x.net> wrote:

> I was a little disappointed with conditions here in Michigan last night.
> It seemed more like the Summer Stew with the lightning static from the
> storms in Texas and the Upper Mississippi Valley.
>
> I'll refrain from any comments on manmade climate change.
>
> 73
> Art NK8X
>
> ᐧ
> _________________
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