EU activity heard since Friday:
DK8KW (569), EI0CF (589), PI4DEC (579), IK5ZPV (559), SM6PXJ (569), PA0LEG
(559), OE5ODL (559QSB), DJ5DI (559), I5MXX (559), PA0BWL (559), ON6ND
(579),
HB2ASB (559), PA0SE (579), DJ9IE (339), DK5PT (559), OZ8NJ (569).
Plus plenty of stations from G, GW and GI.
First a bit of late news; at 19.25UT on Thursday evening (17/2) I got a
reply from a CQ call, which by its strength (589) I thought at first was one
of the stronger G stations. It turned out to be SM6PXJ, and Christer
confirmed that my signal was also much stronger than normal. He later
discovered this contact coincided with a large X-ray event, which started
at around 18.45UT (thanks for the interesting graphs, Christer). This is
the first QSO I've had on LF which actually felt just like working a 'lift'
on the higher bands. It would obviously be very useful to know when these
events are in progress as they enhance signals by quite a few dBs.
Best news of the week is the return to the band of Finbar, EI0CF, with an
experimental new antenna. We all missed you Finbar - it's really great to
have you back on...... nice signal too.
The only new one for me was working PI4DEC from Dordrecht on Friday morning.
This was operated by Leo PA0LEG, and made my 100th callsign worked 2-way on
136kHz.
Best contact of the weekend was on Saturday at 12.50UT with I5MXX. This is
after a break of seven months since our last QSO - Italy seems the hardest
country for me to work normally. During the contact, and for some time
afterwards, the frequency (136.8kHz) was plagued by someone swishing a
carrier around and obviously tuning up an antenna 'live'. I would doubt it
was anyone on the reflector, but it did make things that bit more difficult;
a pretty antisocial thing to do on a prime frequency at peak weekend
activity
time........
On Sunday morning I was called by a very weak station (339), which I was
surprised to identify as DJ9IE - normally a 579 signal. We scraped a QSO
and it turned out Uli's TX was running just 9 watts; pretty good going over
a path of 611km on 136kHz 'normal' CW!
Regards John G4GVC near Leicester, IO92JP
** TX: Synth + 400W RF from modified 'G3YXM' Mosfet PA **
** RX: TS-850S with 3 x CW filters and 0.5ppm TCXO **
** Ant: Inv-L 60m long, 6m high at feed end, 12m high at far end **
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