[600MRG] OP-8 Reception in Tennessee 2-2-17

[Andy - KU4XR]

Greetings all:

Terribly noisy last night .. relentless static crashes peaking at 20 over S-9 .. baseline noise S-6, so quiet an
excursion in noise to deal with.. I added a third top load wire to the antenna yesterday - 100 foot long -  it is
no longer an OCF - more an Inverted - L with fan top load .. Reception does seem to be better, with a bit less 
noise, and QRN so, that is a good thing.. Not sure how the solar wind helped, or hurt reception last night..

OPERA Deep Search detections are not counted as verified reception, but here are my observational
comments .. For every detection, the time frame is verified, plus I do captures with Spec Lab. and easily
see the signal in the waterfall. I do think that if the static had not been so bad, I would have had real spot
decodes from the session.. With that said; last nights results were the most in a single session so far..

04:11    477 EA5DOM de KU4XR Op8 Deep Search 4455 mi -37 dB in Friendsville, TN. USA 1464.8 Hz
03:47    477 EA5DOM de KU4XR Op8 Deep Search 4455 mi -37 dB in Friendsville, TN. USA 1465.1 Hz
03:11    477 EA5DOM de KU4XR Op8 Deep Search 4455 mi -35 dB in Friendsville, TN. USA 1465.1 Hz
02:47    477 EA5DOM de KU4XR Op8 Deep Search 4455 mi -36 dB in Friendsville, TN. USA 1465.1 Hz
02:11    477 EA5DOM de KU4XR Op8 Deep Search 4455 mi -34 dB in Friendsville, TN. USA 1465.1 Hz
01:47    477 EA5DOM de KU4XR Op8 Deep Search 4455 mi -36 dB in Friendsville, TN. USA 1465.1 Hz

73, and good DX:

Andy - KU4XR