Topband: Morning Openings to Europe from Oregon

[Raymond Benny]

Hello Tree,

Good to hear condx you are working EU in the morning. I haven't yet from
AZ. W7RH is less than 75 miles from me. Guess I should get up in the early
hours of the morning.

But I was on last night trying out the FT8 mode on 160m and did work 25 EU.
Many were the usual guys on CW, but not all.

Not sure if I will stay with FT8, but perhaps when a new one comes on and
not on CW, then maybe I'll try.

It is sure disheartening to hear only a few signs on CW but hear so many on
FT8. Still trying to figure out if FT8 gets me through to the extremely
weak stn's or not. I think that all the guys I have worked on FT8 could
also have been worked on CW. Guess This mode does allow the smaller
stations to work others plus some DX.

I'm hoping to be on the Stew, at least part time.

Merry Christmas

Ray,
N6VR


On Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 8:07 AM Tree <tree at kkn.net wrote:

> All - the morning openings to Europe continue and seem to be gaining in
> strength.  For the past month - the morning polar path has been there more
> often than not.  It has been pretty consistent during the past two weeks.
>
> This opening from Oregon seems to be best starting a couple of hours before
> sunrise.  It has never been best just before sunrise - and almost always
> loses steam about an hour before sunrise.  W7RH in Arizona had even worked
> some of them - which is amazing to me.
>
> This is not a long path opening - the heading is North from this QTH.
>
> Another interesting event happened yesterday - while I was testing my new
> EU beverage - LY7M was being heard 90 minutes before sunset.  This wasn't
> all due to the beverage as I could hear his signal on the TX antenna some.
> It wasn't until sunset that I could get his attention for a QSO however.
> Maybe it is time to add some more radials...  am still just using 11 of
> them with the loaded 98 foot tower.
>
> From my perspective - this all adds up to conditions being better than they
> have been for the past 8 years.  These are the types of openings that
> occurred during the last "peak" during 2008 and 2009.
>
> Hopefully - the good conditions will continue into next weekend for the
> Stew Perry event.  Rules and plaque information can be found here -
> http://kkn.net/stew
>
> 73 Tree N6TR/7
> Manning, OR
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