Topband: Good conditions, Little Activity

[W7RH]

I agree to a certain extent that there has been a bit less CW activity. 
I hope at some point the novelty of FT8 wears off, but I won't take that 
away from the guys having fun. Yawn. Early the second week of September 
and the last two evenings have seen a burst of activity and quite good 
opening to EU.

That is 4 days out of 40 that have had decent propagation with no major 
geomagnetic activity. I get sleepy just thinking about it. I might also 
mention that the last two evenings have been almost lightning free 
beaming across North America towards EU. We are here and the lights are 
coming on. For us old school earthlings it takes a lot of work both on 
RX and TX to be heard and worked through the aurora ring of lights. 
Kudos to all those that accepted that challenge.

Now if I were to be so lucky I would be further south and east or like 
Steve VE6WZ live under the aurora circle and thus have a path towards 
Europe.

Last night I had a good opening to the Urals and the Baltic. Russian 
stations in UA1,3 and 4 sounded like locals. LY7M was good as usual and 
some good signals from Lapland, Sweden and Norway. Just a few Western EU 
were making it above the noise floor G3YRO was one. The opening was 
short lived, gone in an hour or two.The VK and ZL boys have been very 
active all summer helping to keep band alive. More JA stations are now 
showing up as well. If we could just teach the BY stations CW and 
station construction practices for 160m we would be in good shape!

The good news is the end of cycle 25 is sounding a lot like it's 
predecessor. I'm definitely looking forward  to the winter months. 
Anything is better than nothing.

Bob, W7RH



-- 
W7RH DM35qj

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our 
humanity." - Albert Einstein