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ZL7C, 22 Oct, 21:00 UTC...
A quick note to comment on our 160 m during 22 Oct 2002
UTC,
possibly of interest to the top banders who tried to work us, during the past two days. A couple of hours before local sunset, the weather moved
in.
We came close to shutting everything down due to lightning, but luckily it went around us. Well before local sunset, at 05:15 UT we were once
again
calling CQ on 1830.5 and listening down, as the rain came down. The resulting rain-static and QRN crashes prevented us from hearing much. I can't tell you exactly what happened as, at this point, I
was
off for some kip (only got 4 hours the previous 2 nights). Steve G4EDG started off, and, judging by the log, the great sunset opening into G/GW/EI we had on the previous night did not happen. When I came on, at 12:30 UT, Steve and Hiro had put 50-odd
stations
in the log, mainly JA and North America. By ZL-standards, the 160 m band was still very noisy. Hiro told be that even the big JA stations had been relatively weak. As the terminator travelled across the US, I logged several
US
stations. some of which didn't seem to hear us too well, with several stations calling but not coming back with a report. Some of the W6 and W7's however were good copy. It was certainly a struggle to copy at our end. Shortly before
local
sunrise, the JA signals started coming up, and I logged several who weren't hearing me earlier on. We finished up with more than 80 stations in the 160 m log,
which made
it all worthwhile. As an aside: the reason for us being on 1830.5 is that the
ground-
mounted vertical we are using has a narrow SWR bandwidth, which means we can't operate on our intended frequency without tripping the safety circuit in the amplifier. In order to still be able to work JA, we are listening down, typically around 1823 kHz. No decision has yet been made on tonight (local), but my pick
is
that we'll be on 80 m CW for a change, but we'll be back on top band at some point. Wilbert, ZL2BSJ 73 de Lee ZL2AL - ZL7AA, ZL8RI, ZL9CI, VE3OE, Pilot ZL7C October, 2002 DX is!
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