The topband season seems to be heating up at last. Maybe it's just a
late bloomer. :-)
As so often happens during the opening hours of a geomagnetic
disturbance which happens to follow a long quiet spell, many signals
were greatly enhanced last night. More northern latitudes and polar
paths were way down from normal, but signals from southern Europe were
absolutely the strongest I have heard this season. I had to wait for a
call sign to know if I was listening to DX or a local.
It extended beyond Europe too. I was hearing bits and pieces of UK8DAN
for a while. Had he not been under my 'growlers' I am certain he would
have been solid copy and workable. UK9AA came on too, but as luck would
have it Fedor also ended up under the growl and I couldn't get enough of
his signal out of the noise. For those who don't recall, I have a major
problem with computer power supplies taking out lower portions of the
band. There are so many of them growling away it is hopeless to attempt
a cure. I guess I'm lucky they don't take out the whole band!
North-south paths were probably well above normal too. Naturally CE0Z
wasn't on low bands last night.
I did manage to get a new one... YS1CF. Not exotic perhaps, but I will
take any new one I can get!
Some of us may want to remember to watch our sending speed when a
station we don't recognize comes on the band sending very slowly. I
noticed one (new to me) DX station last night sending around 12 wpm. He
had several callers, most of whom were sending at nearly twice his
speed. He picked the slower sending stations every time. When there were
no more slow speed callers he disappeared. Food for thought?
73,
Paul N1BUG
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