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Re: Topband: Who turned the band on?

To: topband@contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: Who turned the band on?
From: "Dan Zimmerman N3OX" <n3ox@n3ox.net>
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 11:57:42 -0500
List-post: <mailto:topband@contesting.com>
> Geeze - the band sounds like 20 meters tonite - Friday 0230Z. Euros and
> SA S9 plus across the band and the French RTTY station at 2065 mhz is
> 20 over here. The only signals I usually hear that loud are those from
> my analyzer.

I stayed on kind of late (0530?) and signals just kept booming in all
night, and quite a few big signals on as EU started to get up in the
morning.  OE3GCU, S59A, G3XGC, IV3PRK and others were 599+

I also heard ZB2FK & a trace of an SV9 earlier in the night, and had
good copy on ZS1REC at his sunrise but couldn't make it through.

So, I tuned around digging for needed ones and not finding any, and
figured what the heck, I'll call CQ with 100W.

Got several solid-copy QSOs with low-power EU stations out of it!

I don't know if it was mostly an East-Coast opening or what, but
actual QSO activity seemed pretty low across the band.  Lots of loud
(and I mean LOUD) EU calling CQ but it seemed there were only a few
U.S. stations on, no doubt the late hour played a role.

It would have been a great night for low-power-to-a-dipole East Coast
stations to knock down a few EU contacts, I think.  I don't expect a
repeat tonight (can we really *expect* anything on this band?), but if
you've got a small station and are looking to score some DX it might
be worth staying up late to check.

The band was much better here at 0500Z than it was at 0100Z.

73,
Dan
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