[600MRG] condx: monday night --> Tuesday morning

[John Langridge]

Last night yielded a little more noise here in the central US as a result of storms along the NM/CO border.  Condx and participation were good nevertheless.

Eric, XJM, and I played with Thor (Fldigi mode) for a bit during the mid evening.  This FSK mode uses FEC and takes a moment to sync but seemed to work well once synced.  I also found that the DSP in the rig could be tightened down to the operating BW without impacting decodes and this, in fact, worked very well.  I've not had similar success on WSPR. 


I think we are planning to do more of 2-way digital mode testing in the coming days as time and condx allow.

This morning, about 20 minutes prior to Eric's sunrise, we had a nice CW QSO for what represents our first of the season at 5W ERP to 5W ERP ... Working Q's this past summer required Eric to run QRO much of the time due to my local noise and suburban environment.  Condx were stable through the 20 minute QSO up to and through Eric's sunrise where the condx became wildly unstable as expected.  I don't believe a sunrise peak was noted on Eric's end as we had previously seen during previous sessions.  In fact, he indicated at closing that I was down to 549 when we signed.


WSPR yielded a good early path to Merv, XCR in KH6 before he had to pull the plug due to wx.  The usual suspects were hearing well as they have been recently.  Condx are definitely improving.

73 and looking forward to working a few more guys soon!


John XIQ