Topband: Timor Leste report 2

[Dietmar Kasper]

Next Timor Leste report
some team members were unhappy with topband results and with continuous bad propagation
the pressure to me to accept working FT8 has been getting immense. We had a serious
discussion about so I gave up finally and let the daemon out of the box of Pandora.
FT mode in equatorial noise seems not to be the big game changer. Some new stations
came into the log, even some US we did not have before but I would say most of the stations
showed up in that mode we had already worked in CW. Lot of Japan.
Our different point of view concerning resulted in a stop of 160m operation around 12z.
The violent discussion ended with the decission to continue in CW but to allow FT8
if no CW contacts are possible for a while. Sorry that we missed some US that way.
Well, we now have data we can analyze later to see what FT mode can and what not.

Propagation to US have been even better as the day before. THe evening started with
a heavy 30min rain shower setting the property under water. Short after sunset the
band was open to all over US with the exception of the North East.
After 13z the band faded and again we were able to see it in reversebeacon.net
checking wa7lnw. new spotter ka7oei and once w6yx added to the list.

Almost no US west coast although I believed in advance that would be the easier path
to US. If you west coast ops stand up at your sunrise you will miss that country.

During night wind brought huge waves from the ocean. The 160m matchbox got under water
and started arcing, so operation had to be stopped. Fortunately the Titanex vertical
itself resisted the waves so operation was continued.
I felt, that the big man ruling the propagation must have been unhappy about FT operation :-)

However Europe propagation is the big problem of the last few days. Almost no skimmer
spots from Europe, just some deserving callers continued to call us night after night.
Hope for the big improvement of propagation.

73 more later
DL3DXX