Topband: Skewed polar path condx

[Don Kirk]

Hi Steve,

Interesting that you mentioned path distortion.  I did not notice path
distortion (what I was calling flutter) on the European signals I was
copying this morning, but I did notice it on you and other North American
signals.  I mentioned this to another ham this morning as it was indeed odd
sounding, and don't notice it very often.

I was still using my RX antenna pointed at EU (40 degrees) to copy European
stations this morning versus my RX antenna that points 160 degrees, but my
receive antennas are very broad and I'm not nearly as far North or West as
you.

Looking at my notes, I did hear IZ2EWR calling you this morning and he was
decent copy near Indianapolis (peaking 6 dB over my noise floor), but don't
think you worked him.  All in all very poor conditions this morning but I
was able to work the usual UK stations and ON4CT which surprised me because
he was right at my noise floor (I think we both only run 100 watts).

73, and always great hearing you pull stations out of the mud.
Don (wd8dsb)

On Tue, Mar 31, 2020 at 11:38 AM VE6WZ_Steve <ve6wz at shaw.ca> wrote:

> Last night DL8LAS and SP3HLM were logged on 160m but the ONLY copy was via
> a skewed path over South America, a 90 deg skew path from direct.  This was
> not a “subtle path skew”, but very dramatic with absolutely zero copy on
> the direct NE or even east path.  Not even a trace on the waterfall when RX
> direct.
>
> I started CQ around 04:15z and V31MA called, but I really struggled to get
> his prefix because I was RX via the usual EU path and assumed he was an EU
> caller.  Later Andy DL8LAS called, and I was switching RX when I heard him
> on the SE RX.  No signal at all direct path to the NE. At around 4:45 I was
> able to eventually piece together SP3HLM's call.  I continued to RX via
> South America, but was unable to pull out any other callers.  I did hear
> ON7PQ call, but could not confirm.
> The copy was extremely difficult because there was such very severe AU
> distortion with the signals getting ripped up and garbled via the skewed
> path.  I knew there were other callers but it was impossible to piece
> together the calls because the characters were broken up due to the path
> distortion.
>
> With the K index at almost 3 and the solar wind at 500 km/s last night, it
> was amazing that any signals were making it.
>
> Severe polar path skewing is not unusual, but this year the band has been
> more stable with the direct path usually dominating. This is the first time
> this season I have noticed it.
>
> This morning HL5IVL was also skewed to the south from direct path, and
> Kevin VK6LW was very weak.
>
> Lets hope the geo-mag settles down this week.  Last year my last EU was
> logged on April 19th, so there is still some DX life left in the band!
>
> 73, de steve ve6wz
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