Makes perfect sense, Bill!
I can work AF far more easily than Europe from my QTH near San
Francisco. When I moved out here from Chicago, Garry, NI6T, taught me a
lot about propagation on Topband, observing that the path from AZ and
SoCal was a few dB better because it goes through a bit less of the AU
zone.
Sadly, Garry has been QRT for nearly a decade, deep into Parkinson's.
73, Jim K9YC
On 3/24/2026 4:09 PM, Bill Tippett via Topband wrote:
I
especially noticed some conditions when stations above the auroral rings
(e.g. UA1OT in FJL) were much stronger than they "should" have been
compared with more southerly EU areas. One simple explanation was that my
signal only needed to traverse one short part of the Au zone for my signal
path whereas other EU areas would need to go through the zone for greater
distances (or maybe even twice) implying higher absorption. This could
also explain the differences to JA that W7RH noted versus you.
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