Topband: Morning (W6 time) opening to European Russian today at ~1300Z during ARRL contest

[Peter Sundberg]

You were a very good signal here Rick all the time you were in 
darkness. Unfortunately you never heard me and I know there were 
other callers as well from northern Europe :-)

Super signals from all over NA this past weekend. The band never died 
as long as there was darkness over the entire, or some part of the, 
continent. Interesting to note, after sunrise here at 65.4N stations 
from the east coast, who still were in complete darkness, got 
noticeable weaker while the mid west and west coast stations got 
stronger. This follows the trend I've seen befor.

The band was packed with NA signals, all the way up and above 1850 kHz.

Two types of QSB were predominant. The usual very slow QSB with nulls 
and peaks that last for more than a minute, and the very rapid QSB 
which takes signals in and out of the noise in 10 seconds or so. This 
was especially noticeable on KH6/KU1CW - in the morning hours my time 
very short but strong peaks, come noon and afternoon more or less 
solid copy all the way until sunrise in KH6.

It is always interesting to hear west coast NA working Asia while I 
am hearing both sides equally strong. The problem for me is that you 
guys in NA are predominantly (of course) listening with antennas 
pointing to Asia, so it is not easy to get a QSO with you at that 
time of day. Despite very good signals at this end.. but a bunch of 
us up north were indeed trying hard to get your attention.. :-)

Too many calls to mention who stood outover time. But looking at the 
most difficult path straight over the pole K7CW, N7ZG, N7DD, N2IC, 
W6AYC, N6RK, KH6/KU1CW, KL7FB plus the amazing signals all day from 
the potent VE6 crowd - VE6WZ, VE6WQ, VE6BBP. And K0RF, like a beacon 
at all times.

As I've said these are just a few calls picked out from all the 
stations heard over the weekend. I worked 55 of you, so not bad 
considering I was only on from early morning and I did not burn the 
any end of the candle in the middle of the night.

This weekend is pretty much on par with the way the band was in 2011. 
That's the year that I made it to 49 states worked, only missing MS. 
This Sunday morning I heard N4OGW in MS working mainly NA stations 
before he suddenly disappeared, ouch..! :-)

Let's hope these lovely band conditions continue well past The Stew 
and the CQ 160M CW !

73
Peter SM2CEW



At 02:35 2019-12-09, Richard (Rick) Karlquist wrote:
>11 or so years ago, I worked UA3AGW at 1500Z during the ARRL contest
>using only 100 watts then.  That was of course at a sunspot minimum.
>
>We are now at the next SS minimum and this morning in the 1300Z hour,
>I again worked UA3AGW who called me during the contest.
>I also worked RK4FF, UD4F, RM4F, RA4LW, and RW3PZ plus LY7M and UW2M.
>I would like to thank all the callers for sticking with me till
>I got your call, although some were armchair copy.
>I was using 1,500 watts today.
>
>I hope to see this opening again in the upcoming Stew Perry
>where it will worth a lot more than 5 points.
>
>Rick N6RK
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