Topband: 160m CW Activity

[Guy Olinger K2AV]

Was recently talking on 160 to one of my G3 acquaintances at his dawn.
He was apparently hearing me quite nicely. I gave him an honest,
accurate RST 289. Maybe closer to 189.

In between rapidly recurring S9/20 QRN crashes he was an honest S8 on
the K3, 3 or 4 S units above daytime noise levels. Never would have
kept it up, except for whose call sign it was.

That kind of QRN is the kind of thing one gets when it's -4C on one
side and 18C on the other of a front running from the Gulf of Mexico
up and down eastern US to Canada. That plus tornados, roof-ripping
straight line winds, etc. Won't get into the why business. But
whatever it is going on, it's real.

Getting on and working Top Band DX is something done for fun, not a
religious obligation, like making Sunday Mass. Time zone
differentials, people sleeping during their local nighttime. and
northern/southern hemisphere upside down seasonal differences are not
going to go away.

73, Guy K2AV

On Sat, Apr 3, 2021 at 7:25 PM List Mail <mail10 at barefoothorse.com.au> wrote:
>
> We typically have storm static from September till April, but winter thunderstorms are possible as well. In addition, there is always Tropical noise that may propagate in, when there are otherwise no thunderstorms apparent across all of Australia.
> I’m still working a handful of European stations most mornings, but this morning, the Polish DX Contest was on, so that made working any DX impossible.
> Most of our interesting DX is worked during our summer time, so we just have to put up with the noise. Very little happens over winter, when it is nice and quiet.
> 73, Luke VK3HJ
>
> Sent from Mail for Windows 10
>
> From: Roger Kennedy
> Sent: Sunday, 4 April 2021 4:16 AM
> To: topband at contesting.com
> Subject: Topband: 160m CW Activity
>
>
> I know a lot of you guys in North America are complaining that you are
> already getting a lot of QRN on the band, so aren't coming on . . .
>
> I guess we're pretty lucky here in Britain, as we only usually get
> thunderstorms in August . . . and even then, only for a handful of nights,
> so we don't get too many problems with static.
>
> But I just wanted to let you know that there are still quite a lot of us
> Europeans on 160m CW every night, looking for DX contacts . . . but most of
> us are calling CQ DX for ages, and lucky if we have more than 2 or 3 QSOs.
>
> However, propagation is still pretty good (I managed an S7 report from Texas
> last night), so if your noise level isn't too bad, hope a few more stations
> might make it on the band !
>
> 73 Roger G3YRO
>
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