I looked at the Hepburn Map before the Tuesday night activity and saw
that conditions would be quite flat but I was rather surprised at how
poor things were. It did not matter which way I pointed the beam, but
everyone was very weak compared to other nights. I do not have my log in
front of me, but I noted that many stations were down by a couple of S
units. WA3NUF, K3TUF, W9KXI etc. Maybe it was a case that antennas were
not lined up, but I started thinking that my antenna was suffering more
problems. I have yet to repair the ice damage and some bent elements
that have raised the VSWR on the 4 X array. Still, the activity level
was high and I ended up with 28 QSOs when I quit at 01:15 UT. My last
QSO was a meteor try with K9MRI. Distance is in the 700 mile range. I
tried a little trick and elevated the sharp array a few degrees in hopes
that it would help on the short path. Not sure if it did, but we worked
in under 15 minutes. I had quite a few decodes of Joe sending R EN70
which was nice. The meteor count is definitely up there now.
In spite of the weak signals in the NE, I had no trouble working WA3EOQ
in FM09. That is a very long tropo scatter path at 800 km. The
interesting thing is that WA1MBA on Cape Cod actually heard Howard last
night as well. Not bad for an 800+ km path and 100 watts. Rick, WC2K
was on from New Jersey and had a pretty good signal. It was great to
hear him on and making noise. K2LNS was out portable in FN11 and he had
a FB signal at first before the QSB hit. He went from 579 down to about
549 and watery. I think Herb was running low power, but that location
seems to be a winner! I was impressed that WZ1V worked five stations
with his Quansheng HT. He had a good signal here and the keying was
rater good using the PTT button! I ordered another Quansheng so I can
keep up with GB Ron. W1XR in FM19 was up and down, but good copy on
SSB. Many in the midwest were stormed out from the big line of T storms.
73
Dave K1WHS
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