[Meteor-Scatter] Early Perseids reports

[Shelby Ennis, W8WN]

Early PERSEIDS report:

At this time, approximately 30 reports have been received, most from Europe.

Many operators did well. The largest number of contacts reported was about 
50 (in Europe).

North American reports are too few to draw any conclusions.
Several 222 contacts were reported.
No 432 MHz contacts have been noted, but there were some "near misses" on 432.
On 144 MHz, K9KNW and W7XU completed a 1486-mile (~2392 km) contact, which 
is the longest distance reported.

There was another "near miss" of interest - K2TXB and W0AH came very close 
to a MS contact at 1617
miles, but were unable to exchange final R's.

FSK441 was the mode of choice for nearly all contacts. There was some SSB 
activity reported from
both Europe and North America, but it was very small compared with previous 
years. Europeans are
reporting only limited HSCW activity.
Use of the calling frequencies, but listening and moving to another 
frequency for a contact, was
found to be necessary in both Europe and North America, due to the amount 
of activity. While this
was done quite successfully, a few new to meteor scatter did not seem to 
understand the
procedures; fortunately, they were very few.

It was also noted on both sides of the Atlantic that some stations would 
answer a CQ, but would
call for only a few minutes before leaving the frequency. It needs to be 
pointed out that pings
may be separated by a *number* of minutes, especially if it not during the 
peak of a major shower or
if the geometry is not optimum.

This is only a preliminary report. We have almost no reports from North 
American stations, but activity was good.

More on the Hot News page.  Hopefully more reports will be received soon so 
this can be updated further.

73, Shelby, W8WN
Shelby Ennis, W8WN - EM77bq - KY
          w8wn@arrl.net
         w8wn@amsat.org
  Web: http://www.qsl.net/w8wn/
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