This morning at 0700 I had a QRSS sked with Rich, OM2TW. This failed both
ways. An hour later I saw his signals with deep and rapid QSB (so that it
cut some dahes in half, making them look like two dots!), during his sked
with ON7YD.
At 1010, Rich replied to my CQ call with an 'O' signal, giving me an 'M'. I
believe this is the first G-OM QSO.
It was dawn here during our early sked and I presume that the sky wave was
in antiphase with the ground wave. The later QSO was mostly ground wave,
though there was a little QSB.
I had to retune the antenna at 0700, reducing the inductance. I thought this
was due to the snow on the trees. When it got light I found that two of my
cable-tie insulators had broken - presumably they had become brittle with
the sub-zero temperatures we have had for a week - leaving the antenna top
section supported by one insulator only. Fortunately, I had joined together
the ends of the top wires to reduce corona, so all three wires were still
up, but now they were arranged vertically, not horizontally.
Since this will have reduced the efficiency of the antenna, I was specially
pleased to make it with Rich.
Pictures of OM2TW's signal and of my bent antenna wires will be posted on my
web site later this weekend.
Mike, G3XDV
http://www.lf.thersgb.net
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