Hi Gentlemen,
My two cents:
I had really never believed in any such thing as "one-way"
propagation, but the phenomena you guys have described
are exactly what I have also observed. From Texas, EU
could typically be copied for a couple of hours before I
could ever work any of them. They could be S7 at 03z,
and only S5 a couple of hours later when I had no problem
working them. The same thing happened in reverse to VK3,
in a particular instance. I was calling CQ on a very quiet
night (s-zero base) when ZL2JR told me that several VK3's
were calling. He was S9, but I could not hear a trace of any
of the other callers. I told them to keep calling, that I should
be able to hear them soon. Sure enough, about 45 minutes
later, VK3IO and the others were S7, and I had no trouble
working them. Funny thing was, they said I was now about
2 s-units weaker! I observe the same thing from KH8, as
the early opening rarely allows me to work anything (except
Trey or Tree) but the later opening, when signals are consid-
erably weaker, allows me to work a lot more. I would think
that maybe QRM or listening in the other direction was the
cause for it except for the VK3 incident, which was repeated
several times. Precisely the same thing happened with VK6.
It seems that the stations farther west often hear first on
TopBand. It certainly is frustrating to call someone who's
S9 without making them hesitate, but don't get discouraged
when their signals start fading a bit, just keep calling!
Good DX'ing,
Don, KH8/N5OLS
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