[ADXA] 9M0W Spratly Finished

[Joel Harrison]

There is still a ton of DX on from TN, TY Z6, 3C0, H40 and others.

The 9M0W Spratly DXPedition is over and the boys are now safely back in 
Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia as of a couple of hours ago. Hope some of you made
it in to their log. I only needed Spratly on 160 meters and was one of the
lucky few from North America (along with K5UR) to make it on that band. I
was talking with Jeff, K1ZM the 160 meter op, a short while ago who said
he was tired and smelled like goat and was heading to the shower!

It was quite interesting listening to him tell about the 160 meter
propagation on his end. You have heard me talk about those very brief band
openings and the gray line before.

The first morning they were on we heard nothing on 160 meters here. On
Friday morning at their sunset, 1020z (4:20 AM our time) they popped out
of the noise with a nice signal for 15 seconds and then were completely
gone. They came back at our sunrise very weak, too weak to call.

On Saturday morning they were not copyable at anytime. Then on Sunday
morning, even though we had a lot of QRN from the storms the night before,
we started hearing them right at their sunset for about 5 minutes with a
very nice sig. I was able to log them at 1037z then their signal was
completely gone 3 minutes later. It came back around our sunrise but not
nearly as strong for about another 5 mins.

This morning their signal was very weak at their sunset for about 5 mins
and then was gone for good.

Propagation is odd, especially on 160 meters. Much more so than on 80
meters and it takes a lot of BIC time (Butt In Chair) with your headphones
on listening to nothing but noise or static for sometimes hours waiting
for that brief opening of a few seconds or minutes when you grab a new one
and recover from your BIC fatigue by doing your "new one happy dance!"

I can only explain it as very long periods of boredom interspersed with
brief, intense moments of excitement!

Amateur radio is exciting!

73 Joel W5ZN