Topband: Summer Stew Perry

[Richard (Rick) Karlquist]

On 6/21/2020 3:41 PM, List Mail wrote:
> I worked K7RAT (with some difficulty) and that was all.
> 

> Luke VK3HJ
> 

 From California, the band was basically only active
from sunset until about 0500Z, at which point K7RAT
was the last man standing, and it didn't seem like
he had much rate.  He was something like 40 dB over
S9 here!   After CQing for 10 minutes without
any calls, I went QRT.  Only ZL was in the dark by
then.  I was too tired to stay up until VK was in
darkness.

For the brief time when there was some activity, the
propagation to the east coast was great.  A dozen or
two stations in the FM grid field were easily worked.  After
the contest, I got an email from an Ohio station
saying I was the only station he heard west of the
Mississippi.  So maybe I was in the spotlight.
Come to think of it, I didn't heard any east
coast stations CQ'ing.  They were all responding
to my CQ.

K7RAT to some extent made up for KV4FZ not being
there :-(  He was often the last man standing in this
contest.

Anyway, I think we have established that the band
works just fine at our Summer Solstice and we just
need more activity for this contest.  Before this
contest was started a few years ago, I had the
mistaken impression that the band was dead in the summer.

Rick N6RK