Last night we had storms so I didn't listen on 160 because I had already
worked VP8STI on 160 the previous day, however Wednesday night/Thursday
morning VP8STI propagation was not unlike the same thing that often
happens here in Alabama. Up until about 0515Z (Jan 21) they were at ESP
signal levels. The pile was pretty big and there were a bunch of guys
working him. I decided to see who was hearing them and copied a bunch
of calls out of the pile and looked them up. They were all north of me
except for W4ZV and K4SV, who are a little NE of me. Then the pile
died. I thought he went QRT. Then a few minutes later he popped up to
10 dB above my noise floor. Nice signal. I worked him at 0530Z and so
did some of my friends in Alabama. It was time for the southern
stations and the pile grew again with those stations. This was right at
his sunrise. Shortly after that he was spotted on 80 SSB. He had a
good signal there also. He heard me first call but thanks to the QRM
plus his QSY up 5, it took a couple of tries to finish the Q.
Conditions like this seem to be common on the difficult ones. Guys up
north hear the DX and the southern states hear nothing, but sometimes
the table flips and we get the DX and guys up north can't hear them.
Such is the joy and frustration of working 160.
Receiving antennas are a multielement EWE array and BOGs. Path was best
to the SE. Only have 6 directions for receiving antennas, NE, E, SE,
SW, W, NW.
Jerry, K4SAV
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