Was busy repairing my PA power supply on Saturday,
after a breakdown shortly before sunrise the night before.
What you call exceptionally good condx over this weekend
seems to be a dead band on my end. Average noise and
signal levels were down by abt. 20dB compared to a fully
open band, what makes it more diffcult to copy anybody
(local base noise floor stays the same).
>From Europe I didn't even hear a whisper, Japan was popping
up out of the noise only sporadically. Only solid but week
path even under poor condx at this time of the year seems
to be the Pacific route into North America. Got W7GG calling
in the first hour, later followed by W7WA, VE3IY/7, NL7Z
and at 1800Z VY1JA was coming in. Until the last hour of
this event it seemed Bob W7GG got to be my 'distance' record
with 28 points. But then it was broken twice - Pres N6SS got
it with 30 followed by Earl K6SE with 29.
Funny interworking happened several times in the first hour.
I was calling CQ, when I got a reply - struggling to get the
callsign together - Brett VR97BG was jumping in, making his
QSO and going away again. Unfortunately he wasn't of any help -
his QSB was so deep - I've never managed to get a callsign
out of his QSO's. Sorry for everybody calling me without
response (still have plenty of partials here on my list).
Have spent some time listening to Steve VK6VZ working the U.S.
Midwest later, but except some partials I never got somebody
completely together.
BTW, for your info Tree - from below the equator you've
mentioned already two (KH8/N5OLS, VK6VZ), I'm also still
below (6.51S) and I've worked VK3AJJ - not to mention the
DX'ers from ZS....
At the end of the day I've got 18 QSO's with 302 points,
better than last year but not as good as next year :-)
vy73,
Joerg YB1AQS (OI33QL)
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