[NLRS] W0ZQ - Weekend report

[jcplatt1 at mmm.com]

What a fun weekend of radio.   I was in and out of the shack both Sat &
Sunday, so I never spent more than 30 minutes at any given time in the
shack, but it seemed like every time I did sit down both 6m and 2m were
hopping.    With the CQWWVHF contest in full swing, the sporadic E was hot
.... we should see some big contest scores.    Sporadic E was in on 2m
Saturday late afternoon as I worked W3ADC and heard several other east
coast stations.   Saturday evening we had a tropo pipeline into the EN50/60
+/- region.   Big signals on 2m, and even 6m as the tropo enhancement
extended down to 50 MHz.   As this contest was 6 & 2m only, not as much
activity on 222 and up.

On Sunday, more of the same !    E's and tropo.   Sunday morning was
quieter.   VE4MA and I tried the northern path on Sunday AM with
no luck.   But by the evening it was all heating up again.   Sunday night I
worked as far east as FN02 (VE3AX @ S9+) and FN12 (K2AXX @ S5) on 2, 222,
and 432 tropo.   Neither station had their higher bands operational.   I
then found Bob, K8TQK in EM89 (Ohio) and we worked from 2m up through and
including 3456 .... my best DX to date on 3456 and perhaps on 2304 as well
(643 miles : 1035 km).    On 902 I was running W0GHZ rover rig at 8 watts
out !    On 2304, that was 6 watts.   THAT was a lot of fun !

Any other tropo reports from this weekend ?   How about some contest
reports ?

73, Jon
W0ZQ