Hi all , Just some thoughts. I only have anecdotal evidence for what I
am about to write but anyway here are some feelings. Since we went to
30 second dots I cant remember a night when I didn't see a UK station
here except when either
1. Nobody was transmitting or
2 I had severe 60 HZ pickup
In other words the path between US es Nova Scotia is
available to stations with erp of the order of Laurie's 0.3 watt or
better most of the time. I have seen M0BMU or G3AQC when 129.9 or
DCF39 were as weak as S-4. Normally the 2 german stations are S-5 to
S-7 . Last night at around 0400 128.9 was S-8 but G3AQC was weaker
than usual. On at least one occaision M0BMU was received well even
though the K index was a 3.
I feel the path is therefore quite reliable and QRSS with 30
second dots will produce QSOs more than half the winter nights. Some
nights such as when I visited Jack'S house condx can be bad and even
Jack's signals are not reliable. But even that night we saw MM0ALM for
1/2 hour and I believe Jack would have been at least "M" copy if he
were using 30 second dots rather than 3 sec dots.
QRN doesn't seem to have much effect. I have seen EU stns
through static crashes during snow storms that were 10 db over S-9 on
peaks. During precipitation static caused by charged snowflakes all
sigs were wiped out.
My belief is that we will be able to get through even during
most of the summer. i would like to continue testing throughout
summer. I do not think we need to have continuous beaconing. Perhaps
20 minutes at top of hour from Eu and 20 min at bottom of hour from NA .
My sunset now is around 2200Z so I don't start seeing Eu
stations til 2130Z So no point in starting before 2130Z. My sunset at
summer solstice will be around 2345z So starting time then of 2315Z
would be good . Is anybody interested in continuing through summer?
Last night had 60 Hz trouble only saw G3AQC
73 all de John VE1ZJ
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