[OKDXA] Best times for VU7

[Roger Simpson]

-----Original Message----- 
From: Gary McCrorey
Sent: Friday, December 06, 2013 12:10 PM
To: Oklahoma DX Association
Subject: Re: [OKDXA] Best times for VU7

Know how you feel John,  been trying them for new one here also.   Hear them
on 40m in evening but seems as though when they start coming up enough to
work, they either qsy or disappear.   Looks like this is not going to happen
for me.  Only using inverted vee and 500w.  Sure could use them.
Good Luck on working them.  Have fun.
    73 Gary  WQ5R
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Geiger" <af5cc at fidmail.com>
To: <okdxa at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, December 06, 2013 9:55 AM
Subject: [OKDXA] Best times for VU7

======================================================================
"""    Comments from K5RKS
======================================================================
My experience is the same as everyone else's in terms of the best time to 
work them on
15, 17, or 20m. According to VOACAP these are the best times from Oklahoma 
to VU7:

ALL TIMES IN UTC
10m  --  1400 - 1700  LONG PATH; no decent short path opening
12m  --  1400 - 1600  either long or short path; with peak of the opening at 
about 1530 long path
15m  --  1400 - 1600 long path; 0000 - 0200 secondary peak long path
17m --   1400 - 1700 short path with a slight long path possibility
20m --   2100 - 2200 short path; 0100 - 0200 short path
I have four QSOs with VU7 and all of them are within the VOACAP guidelines

I have "marginal" antennas. I have not been able to work them on either 10m 
or 12m.

10 meters: On 10m I have never heard him.

12 meters: On 12m he was working NA but it seemed like 80%+ of the NA was 
east of Mississippi and Great Lakes. In terms of his signal strength he was 
barely workable here. With my antenna I wasn't able to blast through East 
Coast NA wall. This morning [Friday AM OK time] he was not on 12m during the 
NA opening. On many previous days he was on the during the Oklahoma morning 
opening but I couldn't break through. With a better antenna I'd be able to 
hear him better and also stand a decent change of working him.

However, there some of our OKDXA members, with large plantations of Aluminum 
in high places have worked him on 10 and 12.
I'd say tribanders etc at 60 feet might be the dividing line. If you have a 
tribander (or equivalent) at 40 feet [like me] it would be tough on 10 and 
12.
Stacked yagis at 80 feet plus or a monobander or log periodic at 80+ feet 
would likely do the trick.

I looked at the VU7AG log to see how some of us OKDXA guys are doing. I 
think to a first order approximation there is a correlation to the size of 
the antenna farm and the number of VU7 band/modes worked. I've been told by 
several of our big guns that the three most important aspects of any station 
are (in this order) antennas, antennas, and antennas.  Then comes operator 
perseverance, rig, power, etc.

Fortunately, for Amsterdam, even though it is farther away from us than any 
other DX location, and it is VERY RARE, the propagation is pretty good from 
Oklahoma. So if we are diligent we should be able to work him.  I am working 
now on a short path / long path table for Amsterdam in a grid form. I'm 
taking the stuff from the VOACAP website and redrawing it into a grid I can 
look at -- at a glance -- to see what's going on. The VOACAP website shows 
the propagation as a wheel, which for me, is next to impossible to interpret 
in a quick glance.  Amsterdam is going to be crazy. A quick glance, based 
right now on the December 2013 timeframe, shows there will be quite a few 
times where long path is better than short path and there will also be times 
where long and short path are more or less "the same".

73  Roger   K5RKS
================================================================================================================
> Still hoping to work VU7AG for an ATNO before they leave.  What have 
> others in Oklahoma found to be the best times and frequencies to work 
> them? Don't have much of a station here but did hear them pretty good on 
> 17m one afternoon.
>
> 73 John AF5CC
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