Topband: Saturday night

[Richard McLachlan]

I don’t go in for contests but I did spend some time on top band this morning. From about 0600 to 0830 UTC. I was hearing a lot of E Coast at very good strengths plus several in the Caribbean. Unfortunately because of the universal use of 599 reports to everybody in contests (a practice that I really deplore) I have no idea how I was getting out other than that I was being heard.
Last time I was really active this never happened but that is progress and computerised logging I guess.

73
Richard
G3OQT

> On 24 Nov 2019, at 18:46, David Olean <k1whs at metrocast.net> wrote:
> 
> Hi Top Banders
> 
> I was dabbling in the CQ WW contest last night (Nov 24 UT) and noted a few things that seemed quite different to me here in NE USA. The normal situation at my sunset occurred. I could hear many many EU stations but almost none of them could hear me. I am used to that. I quit and had dinner and spent some quality time with the XYL for the evening. At about 0300 UT I was QRV again.  A storm was blowing through New England and There was a fair amount of lightning static, but I was able to call many stations who were very good copy, but almost always got the impression that I was barely audible with them. I am running 1300-1400 watts output. Most stations took three or four calls to get my call correct. A few gave up and had my call wrong but went on to other callers. Other loud stations CQed in my face. This was very different from many of my past experiences. I actually went and checked the electrical passband of my TX antenna to make sure it was performing normally. (It was) I also kept looking at the wattmeter to make sure that I was transmitting into the antenna!
> 
> I did note that there was deep and rapid QSB over a 30 second period. I am wondering what the hearing conditions were in Europe Saturday night on 1.8 MHz. I suspect that noise was a big problem.
> 
> Around 1000 UT until my sunrise arpund 1200, I did a fair amount of listening but heard very little in the way of Pacific DX.  I was operating un assisted so do not know who was QRV, but tuning across the band produced only two HI stations heard from the Pacific. No KL7, no islands, and no VK/ZL. A few CQs produced no QSOs for points.  Very disappointing morning.
> 
> 73
> 
> Dave K1WHS
> 
> _________________
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