Greetings Topbanders. . . After what has been a pretty mundane season on topband, today brought the best Asian opening of the season from here in Iowa. The morning started out with a quick qso with HR9/WQ7R. Then tuning around a bit I heard JA8ISU CQing with a big signal (peaking 5-10/S9). After working Kaz and realizing the band was in good shape, I started CQing at 1158z. I logged my last Q at 1318z, near my SR. After all was said and done, HL5IVL, UA0NL, RT0Q, and RW0LD had called in plus 17 JA stations. At least 8 or 10 of the JA stations were first time calls. I possibly could have worked more stations but took the time to dig out the really weak ones (and there were some darn w-e-a-k ones), sometimes taking several minutes just to get the correct call sign. In spite of the fact that the band was quiet, the 8 circle array proved its worth consistently beating the TX array on receive by a modest margin. Anyway, while it wasn't like openings of a year or two ago (30 or 40 JAs in one settin g) it was, nevertheless, encouraging and great fun. Sometimes, you just have to be QRV. . .part of the mystery of topband.
73 to all. . .Dave W0FLS _______________________________________________ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
