Yes, I saw you in there when I was taking breaks from calling, Don. When
I got up this morning, I was surprised to find that I wasn't in the
online log as I got an "RR73" from them. That had me concerned that I
had worked a very masochistic pirate 🙂. It it looks like they were just
late updating the log, however. My Alpha 87 is dead, so I am just
running ~600 watts from a KPA500 into my 55ft top-loaded vertical.
Clearly Southern California had a big propagation advantage over Alberta
to that part of the world last night as you are definitely shooting a
bigger flame in their direction than I am.
Hopefully the team will be able to sort out their QRN challenges and
band conditions will improve. I am really hoping things improve enough
for a CW contact.
73, Mike W4EF..........................
On 10/21/2024 8:40 AM, Don Moman VE6JY wrote:
I was there too Mike, for way too many hours! Up here they peaked at
-10 and were usually -16 or so. They never heard my kw+ and full size
4 square. Same on 80m earlier. For that area of the world, their
transmit signal was pretty weak (that night) and their rx certainly is
poor. I thought conditions were fairly decent.
Don VE6JY
On Mon, Oct 21, 2024 at 3:03 AM Michael Tope <W4EF@dellroy.com> wrote:
C21MM has been in solid for well over 1.5 hours on FT8 tonight and
it's
still early. They were loud enough at times (at least on my end)
for a
CW QSO, but they didn't decode my signal on FT8 until their signal
peaked up to R=0, whereas on this end I was decoding solidly down to
R=-20. Clearly they have some receive challenges. The DHDL antenna
that
C21MM plans to use for receive has been employed by AA7JV on some
of his
expeditions, so it's got a proven track record. Perhaps there is a
storm
that is very close to them causing unusually high QRN.
I need to go to bed, today is a work day 🙁
73, Mike W4EF.................
On 10/20/2024 6:13 PM, Wes Stewart via Topband wrote:
> The realities about some of these DXpedtions is that they are
organized by Europeans and favor working EU. Take the just
concluded (if they kept to schedule) PX0FF expedition. The ops
were all Europeans and >60% of their Qs were with EU and only 21%
were with NA. They didn't even operate 160 CW. They made 1046
FT8 QSOs on 160 out of >150,000 total.
>
> 8R7X was another one with EU 54% and NA 31%. Of course
propagation favored EU, but they were active long enough that I
worked them on both 160 CW and FT8 as well as 22 other band/modes.
> Ditto A8OK that I worked on 33 band/modes, none on topband. EU
64%, NA 19%.
> I'm not trying to disparage our EU friends, I'm just pointing
out the numbers.
>
> C21MM will be QRV for at least another week. So far they
haven't made any topband CW contacts and only 6 with NA presumably
on FT8. They claim to have installed an RX antenna, but have high
noise. So we shall see, but I'm not holding my breath. To their
credit they have worked about the same number of CW and FT8 Qs and
a few on RTTY, three of them mine.
>
> AA7JV is a dedicated 160 man, who will put in the hours needed.
These other guys are not so motivated and want to run up their Q
count by working the most productive bands, or by turning on the
FT8 robots.
> Wes N7WS
>
>
> On Sunday, October 20, 2024 at 12:11:54 PM MST, Jim Brown
<jim@audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/20/2024 11:14 AM, Steve Harrison wrote:
>> If possible, please spend some time attempting to work some North
>> American stations on *160 and/or 80m **CW*. A few minutes here
and there
>> is NOT enough; HOURS on the low bands are needed in order to
catch the
>> propagation peaks all across the NA and SA continents.
> YES! Veteran expeditioner AA7JV recognized that topband openings
tended
> to happen on one or two nights of a multi-week activation, and
developed
> networks to allow simultaneous operation on CW and FT8 during
every hour
> there's a possibility of propagation. One of the most glaring
failures
> is abandoning the band at the first hint of daylight, when
propagation
> PEAKS over the next 45 minutes to an hour!
>
> 73, Jim K9YC
>
>
>
> _________________
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>
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