Topband: Stew Perry Contest on East Coast of VK

[vk3io]

Hello Top Band Contesters.

Conditions here on East Coast of VK were terrible.

Mega lightning throughout the east coast. Very unseasonable weather for 
this time of year.

Many of the possible Topband contesters (of which there are not many in 
VK) were probably recovering from storm damage and or flooding and were 
either unavailable or had everything disconnected.

For me, it was not so bad at or before my sunrise.

I got on at 1715utc and head nothing, except R3OM, who did not hear me.

I went back to sleep.

Woke up a bit late, just before my sun rise at 1915utc, but only heard 
DR5X, who had a reasonable signal, but who did not hear me, probably 
because he was using a beverage rx antenna not in my direction. DU7ET 
was calling CQ DX almost on the same frequency, so that made it 
difficult. I don't think Bob was in the contest, but we exchanged 
reports and I logged him anyway.

I called LY7M, who had a good signal at 1920utc and we had an easy 
contest exchange.

So I then called CQ Contest on 1824.5 and got a reply from DR5X at 
1930utc who at this time was a stronger signal and then G3OQT, who was 
not so strong but we made a qso at 1933utc.

I think the path to Europe was only open for a short time, as after 
1940utc I did not hear anyone. Typical for this time of October.

During our sunrise time I did not hear any other VK on cw on the band.

During our evening, the QRN on the east coast was terrible and I had 
only one contest exchange with vk6vz.

The VK6's were managing some qso's with USA, but for me it was impossible.

So only 5 qso's for me in total, so I disconnected everything and that 
was it for me, until next time.

Cheers, from Ron. vk3io.