Sorry no new spots to the DX Cluster at all this weekend
I hope the wind and snow didn't affect your long high aerials too much. It
did not seem to be holding back MM0ALM on Friday evening.

Fri 3rd Dec
Quite a lot of activity most of the afternoon and evening. I made occasional
short sessions listening.
1342 G3AQC calling GI3PDM
1452 G3YXM CQ answered by PA0SE
1519 G6NB CQ
2110 MM0ALM working OH2LYG on 136.3kHz could not hear the OH2 though I seem
to remember there was a weak trace on the waterfall display
2219 G3XTZ CQ
Late on I think I heard a tune-up from M0BMU which is a call I have not
heard before....another new recruit.
Sat 4th Dec
Streaming cold making listening with the phones unpleasant so concentrated
on
the visual stuff around 137.7. Particularly as Rik was trialling the dual
frequency cw. I found this fairly easy to read and don't think it would
have been too much trouble even without the inter-element spaces Rik has
added to his spec. Unfortunately Rik was a good signal here and I did not
get a chance to see how easy it would be to copy in amongst the noise. There
were several other calls from the usual QRSers.  I saw the track of a PSK31
signal at good strength on the waterfall at about 2013z but too late to fire
up the decoder program.
Sun 5th Dec
from the overnight log-file  (ZZzzeds til 0800z)
Activity started at about 0351z so Steve had someone to keep him awake.
Dave G0MRF was sending QRS CQs at about the same time. At 0458z Dave's
signal faded out during the letters of the 2nd call.....Oh dear it looked
rather like the FETs were objecting to being wakened up so early on a
Sunday.
Big signal from Peter G3LDO at 0757 with a CQ. I didn't see any DX in that
period and was just settling to a 2nd coffee and the paper (at 0950z), when
a nice clear
CQ appeared on the screen. "Ah that looks like PA or ON".....only to see the
letters HB9ASB appear at a very good 'O'. I have a nice Spectrogram screen
of CQs from Toni and PA2NJN, with Rik and his DFCW in between. Strangely
enough Toni was stronger than PA2NJN though to be fair he may have been in a
more favourable direction for my loop. Thanks Toni a new heard country for
me.
Emphasising your reflector comment to me last week that you WERE on QRS.
Later in the morning (and I forgot to record the time!) I heard Mal G3KEV
working IK5ZPV as did the rest of the UK. I could see a weak trace on the
screen with FFTDSP4 so we would copy QRS at 'O' Valerio. What a shame I
thought I was in for another new country this morning, but I just could not
make out any morse elements in the noise (even with the 80Hz audio filter!).

From the number of calls that followed the end of Mal's qso many others

could
hear. Heard M0BMU working G6NB at 1200z also heard G4GVC, G8RO. I have a
note
of PA0MWC working G8RO, no time logged (It could have been at 1920 after I
returned home) but this is a new PA call to me.

Activity is certainly good at present and it is rare for there not to be a
signal on the band at some time during each half hour period of the waking
day. And I guess someone is listening.....so keep trying the calls. My
waterfall log will run all day, so if you want to experiment drop me an
e-mail and I can ensure its on for you. At the moment I can't print or save
screens off the replay, but I'm working on it.

Does anyone know where one can go to buy Rockwell-Collins filters?? Both
Vaino and myself want to go down a step in bandwidth on our AOR 7030s but
AOR do not stock the part(listed on the R-C web site as a Low Cost stock
part). I have had no response to an e-mail. This seems to be my experience
with large American companies....they have web sites but can't find anyone
to answer the e-mails they generate.

I have compiled a list of locators for the active stations (where I know
them) for Vaino and myself to calculate distances. I can mail a copy to
anyone who wants one (unless you think that would be cheating!) and would
appreciate locators from active stations I do not hear, or who are not
included, to add to the list. I will not post it to the relector unless
there is an big demand.
Whoops sorry ....gas-bag mode again this week.
73 de Alan G3NYK JO02PB
[email protected]