It sounds like classic "spotlight propagation," Larry. Happens a lot on 160. I feel lucky to have experienced it several times over the last 58 years on topband. The most memorable one for me occurred about 8 years ago on a Saturday evening. I called CQDX about sunset and didn't expect much because the usual early spots by East Coasters were not showing up on the "Summit." Several Russian and eastern European stations answered me. Reports were 579 to 599 both ways. It continued until sunrise in the British Isles as I worked my way across the continent. By that time reports were more like 449 to 569. I worked about 100 stations. I hardly heard any stations east of the Mississippi work any EU that night. On Sunday morning I had an eMail from John, ON4UN asking me what I was running last night because the only strong stations he was hearing was me and K9DX. Well, for me it was a spotlight propagation burst... for John, K9DX it was that fantastic layout he had. I was running an OMNI 6+ and a TenTec Hercules solid state amp at 500 watts into a 520' horizontal loop at 50'. Boy, was that fun! 73, Barry _______________________________________________ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
