Topband: WD8DSB & LU5OM 160 meter year long test complete

[Don Kirk]

For those of you that have been getting up early each morning to listen for
LU5OM, just wanted to let you know that we have reached the end of our year
long test.  Manuel (LU5OM) and I (WD8DSB) are pretty worn out getting up
almost every morning (0845 UTC) for one year.  Manuel will still continue
to be very active on 160 meters as he closes in on his DXCC, but our
official schedule has ceased.

As previously reported, our test turned out to be very interesting in that
I was able to copy Manuel at least 95% of the days that I listened
(including my summer months with lots of lightning crashes), with copy
meaning I could copy his call sign and hear him say he was calling CQ.  Our
path is almost a true North/South path (actually 160 degrees) at a distance
of 4700 miles.  For the majority of our test Manuel used a top loaded
vertical (currently 64 foot tall) and 500 watts. My RX situation is a small
pennant (51.6% of full size) using one W7IUV preamp, an old Kenwood TS-180s
with 500 Hz filter and a 200 Hz hi-per-mite active audio filter.

As I said before, this (95% success rate) is something I would have never
thought possible when we started our year long test.

Just FYI and 73,
Don wd8dsb (and Manuel LU5OM)