[UK-CONTEST] HF SSB FD ... HF bands poor or what? Yep.

[G3SJJ]

Yep, they sure were. I travelled 200 miles north of home here in Nottingham
to do FD with Contest Cumbria. Wx on Saturday was appalling and so were band
conditions. Numerous times we scanned 15m and couldn't hear a single signal,
10m was a dead loss and 20m was occasionally alive, but it was difficult to
generate a run so we S&Ped a lot!  There was definately an auroral echo on
signals on Saturday evening, that is when we could hear above the rain
beating down on the tent. Our 700 Qs includes just 8 NA, 2 SA, 3 JA, 2 YB
and no VK/ZL.

I will be interested to compare our log with stations further south but I am
sure that we were more affected being further north.
Interestingly I listened to GD0TEP running DLs on 20 that I couldn't hear.
The beam was good enough and the site pretty high.
If anything the path to the East might have been affected by higher ground
in that direction , but certainly the path to the West was good with land
falling away. With only 10 Qs from the two continents of NA and SA things
were pretty bad.

Chris G3SJJ, op M0CMU/P, Contest Cumbria, the group that goes one dot
further, (sometimes)