The game plan was to try to run stateside on 40m and 80m, and cherry pick DX and mults during the day. This was going to be a “test” ‘test. That turned out to be a ‘Good Thing’. I wasn’t expecting much, since conditions had been so poor over the past few months. But it became a “Murphy visits” weekend right at the start.
Excluding Murphy, conditions appeared to have improved slightly from the mid winter. 20m openings into Europe actually allowed a few QSO’s for the 100w-inna-dipole set-up I have. I found it interesting that I worked stations in EU, South America, and three separate Hawaii stations back to back on 20m around 1630z on Sunday. It is totally anecdotal, but I see it as a sign conditions were slightly better this weekend than for ARRL DX SSB. I sure hope it begins a trend for the fall season.
There was also a bit of a circuit into South America on 15m. The conditions Sunday at mid-day seemed a bit better than on Saturday. Stations that were booming were easy to work on one call. There were a few QSO’s that never made it, as QSB with less strong stations seemed to be wiping me out on their end.
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Continue reading 2008 CQ WPX SSB