Topband: Topband - SSB!!

[Tree]

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 6:10 AM Jan Erik Holm <sm2ekm at bdtv.se> wrote:

> 23 december 1997 I worked KH6AT on 160m SSB. Bryce wrote
> on the QSL card: First ever SSB QSO between KH6 and Europe.
>
> I hope that he was right.
>
> 73 Jim SM2EKM


Congratulations on the achievement Jan and Bryce.  If anyone should know if
it has been done before - it's probably Bryce,  Perhaps N6VI has some data
as he lived in Hawaii for awhile.

At the risk of putting cold water on the FT8 discussion and turning this
into an SSB thread - I believe I might have been on one end of the first XE
- VK QSO on SSB - although XE is a very big place and it's hard to know for
sure (so is VK).  Perhaps saying it was between XE2 and VK6 makes it unique
enough that it is more likely.  It came during either an ARRL DX SSB
contest or CQ WW SSB contest during one of the XE2SI multi-ops that we did
field day style back in the early 1980's.  Mike, VK6HD, called me and
finally it dawned on me who it was.

N6NB has archived some photos of the XE2SI operations here -
http://n6nb.com/xe2si.htm

I have also had some QSOs with Vlad, RA4LW, on SSB - here is probably the
best one - https://www.kkn.net/n6tr/160/RA4LW_2-Jan-2009_1429z_SSB.mp3.

Back in the day (1986) - there was more activity on SSB in the mornings
from the South Pacific.  You would typically hear a roundtable going on
between ZL, VK and perhaps an FO or some other juicy country in the mix.
ZL2BT was a big time operator on 160 and was often on SSB.

The band will be full of SSB in four weeks during the CQ 160 contest.
There isn't another contest like it - where (on SSB) USA can work USA - and
DX can work DX and sometimes you get lucky enough that DX can work the
USA.  I have found it to be an enjoyable event - in small doses - where I
typically go up the band as far as necessary to have a clear frequency and
give out QSOs to whomever roams up the band.  Lots of people who normally
don't operate CW - but enjoy 160 meters show up in the log.  It is followed
by the ARRL DX test - so SSB will once again be very prominent.

In other news - the Stew Perry results are pretty much finalized.  You can
check them out here https://www.kkn.net/stew/STEWSCR.TXT.  We did have a
few logs get lost on the cracks between the WA7BNM log entry page and the
final destination - but I think we found them all.  However, you might
check to make sure your score is listed and if not - resubmit your log with
a note to me.

73 Tree N6TR / K7RAT
Manning, OR