[CW] Strange Conditions on 10 meters.

[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

This morning has to have some of the strangest conditions I've ever
heard on radio.

I heard and called for about 20 minutes YB4IR on the low end of 28 MHz
(10 meters) he was about S7 or so and he got weaker as the morning
continued.  I spotted him at 1419Z

I heard you work the YB4IR on 10 meters.  I spotted him at 1419 but
only worked him at 1504.
I was interested in the propagation - I could only hear him, the
RI1ANF Oleg from South Shetland was coming in strong also - short path
but Indonesia YB4IR was coming in also.  I could hear NO other
stations on the band at all - but there were other stations.  YB4IR
and RI1ANF were both working piles of EU and a few W and VE stations.

Here is the stations I spotted and worked.  I worked VU2BGS also on 21
MHz and asked him to come up to 28 MHz just to see if the band was
open - it was but he was an S unit weaker on 28 - about 339 or so on
28 MHz  while he was 559 on 21 MHz.

N1EA           28002.2 VU2BGS       Kumar 559 in W1 CQing
1529 31 Aug   India
N1EA           28012.6 YL2KO        579 in w1
1512 31 Aug   Latvia
N1EA           28022.0 YB4IR        Good Signals into USA
1419 31 Aug   Indonesia
N1EA           21019.2 HS0ZKS       One call QSO - Dennis #1 Op
1346 31 Aug   Thailand

About 1512 after I had worked YB4IR at 1504 suddenly YL2KO starts
appearing.  No other EU were heard.  YB4IR is still working a pile up
of EU stations.

Isn't  this strange conditions?

This is the oddest thing I've ever seen except for the odd Polar
enhanced propagation that sometimes happens near the spring and fall
on 40 meters.

I remember that during  those periods KC4USB and others used to come
in at 10 AM local in W1.  When I was N1EA/MM and going around Cape
Horn when we got a bit south of the Magellan Channel we started
picking up W8, W9, W3, W2, W1 and VE2 and VE3 on 40 meters.  I was
anchored for a while offshore Punta Arenas, Chile but I never heard
this propagation.

I've talked to a famous DXer from Ushuaia, Argentina-- get this -  he
told  me about the "TREN DEL FIN DEL MUNDO" which rides to Ushuaia
which is like San Francisco but with more hills. He said the same
thing.  He would be working USA during the middle of the morning
before noon mostly and guys from LU and CE who were in 40 meter range
would be  thinking he was drunk out of his mind hallucinating these
stations or have (better yet) a secret antenna farm!

I talked to the Fr. Daniel Linnehan, W1HWK (SK around 1988) shortly
before he passed - he was a fellow who never forgot a friend, he went
exploring  to the North and South polar regions and used a 25 watt
(QRP in those days!) CW transmitter to talk pole to pole.  There is
something he believed that must propagate signals that flows probably
from the magnetic poles and radio signals "hijack" or are allowed to
travel via that path.  I think he is right -

I once made the error of asking VE8RCS "What are you doing up there"
one bright October day - since I was a good CW operator, I thought
there might be jobs!  VE8RCS - I didn't know RCS stood for Royal
Canadian Signals and I had looked up Alert, North West Territories at
82.3N 62.5W - boy that's far north!

I later found out what they did and about the standing order that
VE8RCS was to "immediately shut down with no further communications
should anyone ask what they were doing."  They didn't ignore the
question, they pulled the plug.  I wondered how a station that was 20
dB  over S9 could disappear.  Now I know:

Any discussion on this interesting propagation - either today or the
polar region propagation?

Not really off topic - the contacts were all CW.



David J. Ring, Jr., N1EA

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