[600MRG] a wild ride in the late evening on 630m

[John Langridge]

Last night saw a flurry of activity starting with some very early openings as reported by WSPR.  Aural CW levels were possible with periods of fast, deep QSB, as Eric, XJM, and I found out working a quick exchange on 474.5.  At the same time, Steve, WH2XHY, on 476.6 was beaconing in CW and looking for Q's.  Levels here in NTX were just below the noise level but QSB would have made a definite QSO exchange challenging.  He was reported by Mike, WA3TTS, who made a few youtube videos of the events as well as Eric.  I also note that Steve started out on 475 but I am pretty sure the station I was hearing there was actually Mike, /12 who was at a similar level after Steve had QSYed..


Andy, KU4XR, sent me a really good recording that his WSJT recorded around the time Eric and I worked on CW.  Its always nice to have those records...


Then Larry, WH2XGP, got into the mix with some JT9.  Signals started out very nice but with QSB and band shifts resulted in the QSO taking about 20 minutes to complete but we got it done for Larry's first 2-way on 630m JT9... The evening was punctuated with a QSO between Eric and Larry on JT9 also for a really long haul 2-way.  Oddly enough, we were all tired, but probably could have completed the same QSO's in a single pass an hour later... such is life..

So the band was really rockin last night and made for some exciting drama.  I had hoped that Ken, XXM, would have been in on the JT9 action and suspect he and Larry will hook up shortly.

Condx have been great and seem to be getting better.  Hope to hear even more guys actively participating soon!

73,

John XIQ