Topband: In defence of Mario LU8DPM

[Phil Hartwell]

During our southern hemisphere winter, there is a brief opportunity to 
work South America, which being directly over the south pole from VK6, 
is our ultimate challenge on 160m. I spent a couple of years trying to 
give Manuel, LU5OM, zone 29 on 160m, as did Steve, VK6VZ. I heard Manuel 
many times, but we never completed a QSO, due to his high urban noise 
level, despite him trying many different RX antennas. During those 
attempts I did have QSO's with Juan LU6YF and Mario LU8DPM, even though 
signals were extremely weak. Mario is in a very quiet rural location 
with excellent TX and directional RX antennas. Maybe people having 
trouble working him recently, failed, due to him listening in another 
direction, or more likely, he was experiencing very high QRN during the 
southern summer. Even with his RX antennas pointing north towards the 
USA, the Amazon is a terrific QRN generator and probably masks many 
signals. I keep a good eye on lightning tracker programs, for two 
reasons, firstly to know when to isolate my antennas with approaching 
thunderstorms and secondly to see what the thunderstorm activity is like 
in my target areas on 160m. I know QRN can be intense during the 
northern summer in the USA, and why many go QRT for the duration, it is 
too during our summer, but lightning trackers give me a good indication 
of my chances of being heard in areas experiencing severe QRN. So take a 
look at a lightning tracker program, one that is effective in the area 
of interest, it may explain why someone can't hear you, _not_ because 
they are "deaf"! They may also live in an urban area, with a multitude 
of man made QRM to combat. Regarding lightning trackers, all are not 
equal, for instance Blitzortung/Lightning Maps is excellent in EU and N. 
America, also in eastern VK and ZL, and it's near real time, but it's 
absolutely useless in VK6, as it detects very few strikes here. I use 
Farmonline https://farmonlineweather.com.au/satellite/ which uses the 
Weatherzone Pro service, for local lightning tracking, it's not real 
time, images are at least 10 minutes old, but it's the best available here.

73, Phil VK6GX.


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