Just a quick note to let everyone know that conditions to the East and
Mid-West of the USA are coming up rapidly. I have been on practically every
day since August 1st at East Coast sunrise and finally had my first "East of
the Mississippi" QSO's on the 22nd of Sep (W8UVZ, K4IQJ, others) - the
Equinox must have had some effect. Sep 26 was a big day for the real East
Coast (W4DR, W4ZV et al), I am trying to connect with LU/KY0C and PY2BW
in the 0830-0930z time frame (my sunset is 0815z) but not a peep yet. I
have been on EVERY day at my sunrise (2010z) to work Europe and Africa. So
far only a couple of QSO's - on 5 days out of 30 during Sep (OH2BO and
RA3DOX are regulars). I did have a super QSO with 5B4ADA on Sep 20. I will
continue to use 1824khz for my operating frequency as that is my lowest
noise point on the band. A local broadcast station on 612khz has an S-9
harmonic on 1836khz and his signal seems to pull all kinds of garbage to
that part of the band. A caveat, none of the above comments apply to Tom,
W8JI who is workable almost EVERY day. I even worked him last night from
ZL.
The QTH here is pretty impressive - On a ridge, about a mile back from and
650' above the Philippine Sea. My antenna and it's radials have an
unobstructed view of the Ocean from 220 to 040 - South Africa, Europe and
USA.
I have been thinking of adding another top wire to my Inverted L to make it
a Tee. I can only get 33' vertical but have plenty of horizontal room. Any
Thoughts? Worth the effort?
Gus KH2/K4SXT
e-mail k4sxrt@rocketmail.com
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