[ADXA] Member Standings for Pat, W5VY

[Pat Patterson]

I did a LOTW DXCC application last week and it was approved in about four
hours. Over the summer Es season I added quite a few new ones on 6M....all
on FT8.  One of the "cool" 6M FT8 Qs was with legendary DXer Kan, JA1BK.
There were openings where signal levels would probably have supported CW
but I never could stir anyone one up on CW.  FT8 has the big advantage of
providing a single freq where everyone can participate in openings and the
weak signal decode capability allows marginal propagation to support QSOs.
The downside is that everyone stays on 50.313, FT8, and doesn't check
CW/SSB.   The 6M Winter Es thing is real.  On January 3rd I picked up NH6Y
(KH6) around 0100 UTC and on January 12th I worked five VKs in 16
minutes...all on FT8. The last Q, around 0130 UTC, was VK5PJ, Peter, near
Adelaide in South Australia...over 9,500 miles.
The path has shown up quite a few times before during Jan/Feb.  It has been
suggested that it's a combination of multi-hop Sporadic E on the North
American end that couples into Trans Equatorial Prop to cross the equator
then more Es "down under".  Jim Kennedy, Ph.D, KH6/K6MIO, has done a lot of
study of the path and has written a couple of papers describing his theory.
There are lots of moving parts and they usually don't stay aligned very
long.  For a couple of weeks after that event I would point SW around that
time of day and call CQ for a few minutes....you just never know!  Someone
has to make some noise.
I was looking at Bouvet (3Y0-B) on Google Maps and found a large batch of
photos taken by Nodir, EY8MM, during the unsuccessful attempt of the 3Y0Z
group last year.  The photos are spectacular and provide insight as to why
it is such a difficult entity to activate.  Check it out.

Nice seeing everyone at the Russellville meeting.  Another FB Hamfest put
on by the ARVARF club.

73,
Pat, W5VY
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