Hi Patrick and the group........
I also agree with Pat's thoughts on the bands, and although there were
indeed plenty of CW signals about on 10m, there wasn't any sign of any RTTY
each time I listened.
As Pat says, it was mostly Es, and mostly confined to EU, but there were a
few W's about from time to time.
I did not listen up in the SSB section, as it is too far to tune!
I wonder if the problem of everyone being on 20m RTTY was down to the high
proportion of new calls noted in the contest? From the reported scores I
have seen on the 3830 reflector, a good number of the usual RTTY ops were
playing in the IARU contest, and a good number of these were the people that
can usually be found trying for the band-openings.
There is also the lat/long to take into consideration, as even in IARU I
could hear OE's and DL's working JA/VK/ZL that I just could not hear.
There was some good discussion about such things at the RTTY dinner in FHFN,
and it is quite surprising just how much a few degrees more or less
north/south or east/west can make, especially in northern EU.
One thing I did notice was the lack of any North/South path on 10m this
weekend. I can usually work a few PY/LU stations on RTTY, but I didn't hear
ANY in the IARU.
Thinking about it, I think the lack of serious participation in the UK-DX
contest was solely down to the IARU contest.
Anyway, let's hope things improve a little for SARTG!
73 for now
Phil GU0SUP
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