During the ARRL cw contest I was on 20 meters waiting for the
East coast stations to start showing through the European
signals. Around 1300z here in the arctic we can get this opening
that may last all morning or just a few minutes. The idea is to
get as many 1 land stations as possible and fill in the mults
list. If the band opens then we can run are own pile and all is
well for another year.
I was going up and down the band popping mults as I could here
them start to rise above the noise floor. Soon I had all of my
bandmap worked (STARS) except for two. I bounced between John
K1AR and Matt KC1XX with no luck. Both have excellent signals to
Europe and were running a good rate. I would work on John for
awhile then Matt. The band was starting to change and I needed to
start my own run. I called John a last few times only to have him
work a 100 watt LZ1 and SP7 in my face so I found a clear spot
and called CQ. I started my East coast run when "MR. EGO" took
control. Tab, Ctrl-Pg Dn, Down Arrow, Enter, and I was back
calling John again. And again. Finally sanity returned and
muttering to myself with a dark cloud over my head, I slowly
moved up the band to find a clear frequency.
The band was really changing now and my pile exploded with
signals as the packet spots started. The Icom 781 is a powerful
tool for cw pile-ups. I quickly snapped in the two high speaker
filters, moved the CW pitch two clicks down, AGC OFF, volume LOW,
NAR filter selected with a 250 Hz filter in the 9 MHz IF, split
the twin BPT a few ticks, and then by moving the RIT slowly the calls
unwind and magically appear. And then their was John.
Ha, I say and move the RIT up. John moves up. I move down. John
moves down. He is getter louder now. The band is quickly getting
better and I picture him turning even more antennas my way. I
move up, John is an excellent op and is already there. Now he is
really loud and getting louder. He is slowly trying to find by
bandpass by starting high and moving down, calling as he goes.
The room shakes, stuff is vibrating, the cat leaps from my lap. I
can see a sonic ripple in my coffee. Suffering Christopher, I got
to work this guy, the radio is going into melt-down. I do and the
room settles down. Ha, I say. I realign the station and pick up
my snack boxes up off the floor. John, who is a babe in the wood
to all this, thinks Ken probably needs even more antennas and
moves off after spending 30 seconds or so calling me. But 30 East
coast seconds = 30 minutes of Alaska time easy. Ha, I say again.
And now for KC1 xray xray.
Rich KL7RA
>From JEH@on.mobile.telia.se (Jan-Erik Holm) Wed Feb 19 08:53:40 1997
From: JEH@on.mobile.telia.se (Jan-Erik Holm) (Jan-Erik Holm)
Subject: ARRL CW K3ZO
Message-ID: <D139ISG1WXAI*/R=A1/R=ROONA/U=JEH/@MHS.stoa.mobile.telia.se>
Hello!
Since Fred did inquire about the lack of SM=B4s on 160 I guess I have=
to respond.
YES I was there (hi). Did get on for the eastcoast sunset on saturday=
and
worked
about 10 stations, just did some SP-ing since signals was really weak=
but it
was easy to work stuff so got surprised.
On 80 I mainly ran the westcoast LP opening on staurday and also a bi=
t during
the eastcoast sunset but generaly propagation was pritty bad.
On 20 during saturday I knocked off some 700 or 800 Q=B4s but again n=
o good band.
Sunday did bring even worse propagation so just made some 20 or 30 Q=
=B4s and
then gave it up for the weekend.
73 de Jim SM2EKM NEW email: jeh@on.mobile.telia.se
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