[ADXA] Some Mornings are OK, Some are good, very few are GREAT!!!

[Earl]

Congrats Joel on the new one.

I am waiting on a card from Eddie for 80m that should arrive any day. It 
will be my first zone 26 confirmed on that band.

73, Earl N5ZM..
------------------------

On 1/26/2023 7:32 AM, w5zn at w5zn.org wrote:
>
> During the fall and winter when I am home at W5ZN I have a morning 
> routine. I'm up early, usually by 4 AM, I check the 160 meter spots, 
> check email and scan the news headlines (I'm not sure why I do that 
> last thing). I just have an intense love of listening for early 
> morning DX to SE Asia and the Pacific on 160 meter CW more so than 
> lsning to EU and AF.
>
> During a fall/winter 160 meter season I would routinely pick up 3 to 5 
> new ones on 160 meter CW. When COVID hit, things went dead and as I 
> have noted here previously I feared I may be stuck at 282 and never 
> reach the magic 300 number on 160. Of course, being at 282 on a band 
> like 160 meters leaves some very tough ones left to work.
>
> As we all know from the number of DXpeditions this fall/winter, DX 
> activity is back to normal. As a result I picked up J28MD and T33T for 
> new ones on 160. I assume I could nab Bouvet which would make this 160 
> meter season a win with 3 new ones......BUT WAIT!!!!
>
> This morning I quickly checked 160 spots, email, and the headlines as 
> I normally do. Nothing of interest going on so I went over to the 
> "work desk" to take care of some IARU business and review a document 
> for WRC-23. After a bit, around 1200 UTC I needed to clear my head and 
> thought I would take a peek at the 160 spots and I saw Eddie, XV1X, 
> spotted on 1822 KHz CW. JC, N4IS in south Florida and Jon, AA1K (BIG 
> GUN 160 guy) in Delaware were hearing Eddie. I quickly fired things up 
> after violated K5UR Rule #1 earlier (The first thing you turn on when 
> you walk in the shack is the AMPLIFIER!!) and did not hear Eddie via 
> the direct path to the NW. Then I thought "HEY!!!! check the skewed 
> path to the SW along the grey line" and there he was, weak but Q5 
> calling CQ!! He was lsning Up 1 so I dropped my call in three times 
> and he came back to me!!!
>
> So, the happy ending to this story is some mornings that appear to be 
> dull and mundane can be REALLY GREAT! Not only was it fantastic to 
> work a new one.......a very difficult new one on 160, it was great to 
> hear signals from that region coming in along the skewed grey line 
> path! Its been about 15 years since I last heard and worked a station 
> via that path (9M2AX).
>
> For you FT8 Lizards, Eddie later moved up to 1840 KHz FT8. I decoded 
> him at -14 via the same path.
>
> Now to try to clear the excitement in my head and get back to 
> reviewing technical documents!!!!
>
> 73 Joel W5ZN
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> ADXA mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/adxa
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:ADXA at mailman.qth.net
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html


-- 
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com