Hi all,
anybody knows which country OH0MAM operated WWDX CW from?
Guess it was not Market Reef, but just to be sure...
CT put him on Market Reef, so do not want to claim one mult too much.
Thanks
73, Con DF4SA
CP2235@aol.com
>From kl7y@Alaska.NET (Dan Robbins) Thu Nov 28 10:46:06 1996
From: kl7y@Alaska.NET (Dan Robbins) (Dan Robbins)
Subject: WW CW - strange
Message-ID: <199611281046.BAA07444@calvino.alaska.net>
"...the strangest of the strange...."
This song must have been about the CQ WW CW. Conditions were good and they
were bad and the whole thing was strange.
With NL7GP, KL7U and K0MVL out of town, it looked like a M/S. But then we
firmed up with 7 ops, so we decided to do M/M again this year. Firm is a
relative word - most of the weekend we had 4 ops as the flu and last minute
business requirements cut us down. Still, the contest started good, both 20
and 40 running, 15 S&P, and even 80 making a couple Q's with the sun shining
in the window. Then things got bad around 0300. 20 died to the states, 40
and 15 just died everywhere. A couple of hours later things picked up again
with 160 through 40 working stateside. The regular 20 meter opening to
Europe refused to appear, causing us to miss one of our most productive
openings. 40 meters didn't do well to Europe, either. And it didn't do well
to JA, another big producer. 160 seemed OK, though, not the exceptional
conditions of last year, but the band was open and we were getting some slow
rates down there. 80, on the other hand, seemed to come alive as we headed
for morning. Working USA and JA at the same time, one hour with 103 QSO's -
maybe not good for a Caribbean hotspot, but great for us burdened with
aurora. Even more remarkable, we blew through some huge pileups to snag
goodies. I can remember only one other time muscling through piles on 80
and that was 1992. HC8, HK, HS, XX, XZ, 9M6, BV, VS6, C21 and BA are short
work. But then the bad steps in - the low bands die, 40 goes out especially
early as morning approaches. A couple of hours later, both 20 and 15 start
running stateside (15 is open!!) so things seem rosy again. Even 10 meters
makes a few QSOs, a rare treat for us.
Day 2 starts with 20 and 15 still running stateside, but definitely the run
is petering out. 40 shows some life, including some scarce EU. Then it
becomes 0300 again and all bands take a dive. Conditions get worse...only 9
contacts during the 05 hour. Around 08Z things pick up, 15 opens briefly to
Europe, and 40 starts hammering the JAs. 80 and 160 are useless, only a few
Q's per hour. 20 opens to Europe for a short time, then it dies. At 1200Z
40 is still working JAs, but all other bands are dead. After another 2
hours even the JAs fade. Conditions are pretty miserable. Hear KL7RA
running EU on 160, we manage RX1OX on FJL and that's it. What a difference
a couple of hundred miles makes. Around 1800, 20 and 15 start working
stateside again. Strangely enough, the morning sun seems to perk up 40. I
predict the band will reopen in daylight. It does. Just before 2000Z
VU2MTT enters the log, followed by VU2PAI. Over the next couple hours, 40
works JT, VR2, OH0, A7, 9H, JW, TA, EA8, IG9, and zone 2 along with some
more common Europeans. K1VR peaks on the long path and he hears us. Later
worked K3ZO while beaming Japan, East Coast not audible on short path.
Meanwhile there is an interesting phenomena on 20. We must have a decent
European pileup - there is a wall of noise about S3 when we aim north.
Sadly, every European station is raspy with aurora. The pile sounds just
like your modem trying to connect, no tones, just solid noise. Pull out a
few, but by and large it's pretty hopeless. With about 30 minutes left some
kind of short wave fade hits. It dumps forty dead, twenty dies then slowly
recovers, 15 seems less affected. With one minute left in the contest and
no one answering my CQs on 20, I jump to the freq of the 3W5 - maybe I can
grab one last mult. Oh No! A huge pile, I'll never get through this.
Sounds like everybody in the world calling him. I send NL7G twice and the
3W5 immediately responds - we finish the QSO with 10 seconds left on the
official contest clock.
Like I said, a strange contest, more weird propagation than ever. 505 QSOs
on 80 the first day, 42 on the second day. 741 Qs on 40 the first day, yet
788 the second day. 10 and 15 pretty well split evenly between the days. 20
meters did better the first day by a large margin. One minute no one will
answer a CQ, the next minute you're ripping through a pileup. Forty opens
when the sun comes up, 15 opens in the middle of the night for an hour of
Europe. Hot bands suddenly go dead, then reopen a couple of hours later.
Finally get a big pile of Europeans and they all sound like Alka-Seltzer
freshly dropped in water. Mother Nature not only throws a mean curve ball,
she's got a wicked knuckler, too.
One last comment. There were many stations that didn't make it into the log
for one reason. They went too fast. When you hear a station with heavy
flutter or multipathing, he's probably hearing it on you, too. The dits and
dahs start running together and callsigns at 40 wpm sound like one continous
wheeze. Both N7DF and I noticed we could improve rates under these
conditions by slowing down. If you hear severe flutter or multipath on a
station you want to work, drop the speed. Some seemed unable to adjust to
conditions.
For next year I predict better conditions and a better operation.
Dan KL7Y
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