Topband: Where is everyone?

[Bob K6UJ]

Mark,

I know what you mean about 8 foot ground rods.  I bought a hammer drill from
Harbor Freight and use it to drive the ground rods now.  Piece of cake.
They are on sale quite often.  Harbor Freight has sales quite often, 
actually
all the time, hihi.

Bob
K6UJ




On 10/22/16 7:12 AM, Mark K3MSB wrote:
> There's a lot of truth in what Jorge says.     At 2 AM EDT (The timestamp
> of Don's post) I'm in the sack unless 160 has been open the evening before
> into EU, in which case I'll play radio until the SR line crosses into the
> Atlantic.     When I get up at night to hit the head I typically check the
> spots for 160 and 80.   if something's on I'll get on the radio, otherwise
> it's back to bed.
>
> It's similar to 10M AM.  Over the years I've listened and listened and
> heard nobody.   I'll make one or two CQs and have several stations call me.
>
> Yes the higher bands have been good the past week or so.   There have been
> some great openings into the SW pacific on 17M,  and I did managed to work
> 5H on 12M the other day.    I'm just running a CFZ and the boys with the
> beams were doing better than I was.
>
> I'll be in the stew tonight,  but since mowing season is not done here,  I
> only have one radial rolled out under the INV-L and the BOG is not up yet
> (fortunately the ground rods are pounded in......   I hate 8 foot ground
> rods..... thankfully my son helped with the pounding).
>
> 73 Mark K3MSB
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Herbert Schoenbohm <herbs at vitelcom.net>
> wrote:
>
>> On six meters  here at FK77 it was hot to SA with over 200 PY, LU, CX, ZP,
>> and CE contacts a few days ago.  Many stations were well over S-9
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10/22/2016 9:21 AM, Art Snapper wrote:
>>
>>> Conditions here in Michigan on 80/160 were poor last night. The signals
>>> were weak and band noise was high. I managed to work Mali on 40, and
>>> Hungary on 80, but it was a battle. South America was extremely poor on 80
>>> for some reason.
>>> Art NK8X
>>> On Oct 22, 2016 2:03 AM, "Donald Chester" <k4kyv at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Here it is Friday  night, with relatively little QRN, but only a couple of
>>>> signals are audible across the entire 160m band.  80/75m has a few more
>>>> signals than that, but it's sparsely occupied as well.  Usually by this
>>>> late in the season one will hear plenty of activity in the evening,
>>>> especially on weekends.  I have noticed this dearth of activity for
>>>> several
>>>> weeks now; it's as if this year's radio season hasn't got off the ground
>>>> yet, despite the fact that we are almost midway through autumn and the
>>>> summer QRN has substantially subsided.
>>>>
>>>> Is this a trend, and is this becoming the new normal?  They keep telling
>>>> us we now have a record number of hams in the FCC data base, over
>>>> 700,000.
>>>> Those hams certainly aren't on the air, at least not on 160, 80 or 40m.
>>>> I
>>>> can  remember not that many years ago when at this stage in the season
>>>> on a
>>>> quiet weekend night one had to scout around to find a clear spot to call
>>>> CQ.  So far this year, the bands have all had vast swathes of unused
>>>> frequencies, but the signals that are heard appear to be at normal
>>>> strength, so the  bands apparently aren't dead.
>>>>
>>>> Don k4kyv
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