Topband: Saturday night

[Artek Manuals]

Dave et all

Friday night was better to be sure than  Saturday night. Here in the 
deep south we got no sunset or sunrise bump. In fact early in the 
evening there were almost no EU to be heard, a few Caribs which were 
quickly worked through. I gave up around 0200 and set an alarm for 0500. 
Things had picked considerably.

Then this morning there as you noted there was almost no pacific opening 
at all , one KH6 and not that strong, No JA's which were loud earlier in 
the week.

Friday by comparison EU was loud well above average with many stations 
registering an honest S5 to S8 on the BOG ! In all I worked a total of 
46 countries on both nights (40 of those on Friday/Night Saturday 
Morn..A personal best) .  Funny you should mention QSB there was almost 
none noted here. The only one I missed that I really wanted was 6V7A, 
just didn't have the patience for the rude crowd calling on top of each 
other (please dont hijack this thread to play aint it awful with me... 
we cant solve that problem here) . The personal best catch for me was 
OY9JD for an ATNO . I was surprised and disappointed that 5N7Q or the 
energizer bunny 5T5PA was not in fray at all .... on any band?

Dave
NR1DX
Florida


On 11/24/2019 1:46 PM, David Olean 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
>
> _________________
> Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband 
> Reflector

-- 
Dave
Manuals at ArtekManuals.com
www.ArtekManuals.com