From time to time I have been active on various bands during past month mainly on 80m and 40m but with occasional forays on 14Mhz and 18Mhz and briefly on top band mainly using the 136ft Windom antenna which seems to get out reasonably well despite the fact that it slopes down rapidly to the South away from the house down almost to ground level. I have not yet managed to get the halyard far end hauled up into the 50ft oak tree at the bottom of the garden. The temporary 240ft rectangular loop running mainly on the top of the fence continues to give a good account of itself on 80m on short skip due to its significantly lower noise level during the recent very noisy conditions on that band.
40m has been open to VK during the day sometimes. I heard a VK6 at lunchtime during the Sweepstakes” contest on Sunday 8th November up at the Club using the new StepIR beam and could also even hear some USA stations very faintly on that band calling CQ “SS” on CW which was surprising during the day on 40m. By mid-evening US stations were by then coming through quite strongly on 40m at home on the Windom antenna and I worked in quick succession N1KF on CW with 589 reports both ways and K1LT with 599 reports.
Later in the week at mid-day on 16th November I worked an unusual one on 20m in the shape of OX/EA4NA in Greenland again with 599 reports. One however that “got away” later in the evening was W3ZU in Florida heard at 58 on SSB on 7134 khz with a pile up and the best I could manage through the “crud” was a QRZ?
Today (Sunday 22nd Nov.) again on 40m I heard VK4HFO at 1500 UTC calling CQ on CW at only about RST339 who then worked PC5A giving him RST559. Later at 1745hrs I heard VK9XX on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean at a solid RST579 for at least 30 minutes working EU stations in a monster pile-up on 7010khz working split frequency. Despite my calling him on 400W many times I did not manage to get through the EU racket spreading over 2 to at least 7khz HF.
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