Topband: Thanks

[w5zn at w5zn.org]

Last night Dave, K1ZZ, who is in Geneva at the Conference Preparatory 
Meeting in advance of this fall's WRC, was able to fire up 4U1ITU on CW. 
4U1ITU is still a much needed DXCC entity in North America. Obviously, 
the CQWW 160 SSB contest was this weekend. There is considerable noise 
on 160 meters at 4U1ITU as you can imagine. Not to help matters, once 
the tram fires up in Geneva it adds to the hash noise on the band thus 
the decision to focus on CW rather than struggle even harder with SSB in 
the contest.

Dave chose to operate low in the band, on 1811 KHz initially listening 
up 1, in an effort to avoid as much of the contest traffic as possible. 
Later in the night he shifted to listening down at 1805 KHz to avoid 
some SSB splatter from EU a little higher up.

Dave was able to give about 40 USA stations a new one, mostly from 
around 0500z to 0630z when we had some decent propagation.

During the evening there were around 10 stations that came on 1811, or 
close enough to disrupt the ability to hear 4U1ITU, who were politely 
asked to QSY and everyone did. As someone who needed 4U1ITU for a new 
DXCC on 160, and on behalf of the others, I want to thank you all for 
understanding and being accommodating. It was greatly appreciated.

Thanks again.

73 Joel W5ZN