All - the morning openings to Europe continue and seem to be gaining in strength. For the past month - the morning polar path has been there more often than not. It has been pretty consistent during the past two weeks.
This opening from Oregon seems to be best starting a couple of hours before sunrise. It has never been best just before sunrise - and almost always loses steam about an hour before sunrise. W7RH in Arizona had even worked some of them - which is amazing to me. This is not a long path opening - the heading is North from this QTH. Another interesting event happened yesterday - while I was testing my new EU beverage - LY7M was being heard 90 minutes before sunset. This wasn't all due to the beverage as I could hear his signal on the TX antenna some. It wasn't until sunset that I could get his attention for a QSO however. Maybe it is time to add some more radials... am still just using 11 of them with the loaded 98 foot tower. >From my perspective - this all adds up to conditions being better than they have been for the past 8 years. These are the types of openings that occurred during the last "peak" during 2008 and 2009. Hopefully - the good conditions will continue into next weekend for the Stew Perry event. Rules and plaque information can be found here - http://kkn.net/stew 73 Tree N6TR/7 Manning, OR _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector