vk5pas

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Are the bands improving?

Posted: 16 Nov 2019 03:57 PM PST
https://vk5pas.org/2019/11/16/are-the-bands-improving/


Last night I had a tune across the 20m band and found there was quite a bit
of activity coming out of Europe on the short path.Â* Many of those stations
were participating in the LZ DX Contest.

I worked a number of those stations, but what was really exciting last
night was that I was hearing some of the European WWFF & SOTA activators.

My equipment:-

Yaesu FT-2000
100 watts
5 element yagi @ about 15 metres from the ground


The first European portable station in the log was YP1WFF who was
activating Coridorul Ialomitei YOFF-0485 in Romania.



Next was YU1OS Kosutnjak YUFF-0058 in Serbia.Â* Kosutnjaks
aÂ*park-forestÂ*andÂ*urban neighbourhoodÂ*ofÂ*Belgrade, the capital ofÂ*Serbia.






My next European portable activator logged was SV2RUJ/p who was activating
SOTA peak SV/ MC-025 in Greece.Â* This un-named SOTA summit is 1,558 metres
in height and is worth 6 SOTA points.
Above:- Map of Greece showing the location of SV/ MC-025.Â* Map courtesy of
Google maps

After logging these stations I decided to prop on a frequency and put out a
CQ call.Â* I ended up with a pile-up from Europe and the Middle East.Â* By
1.30 a.m. I was getting really tired and decided to go QRT, with many
stations still calling.Â* All up I logged about 60 European, Middle Eastern
and South-East Asian stations.

Hopefully, this is a sign that the band conditions are improving.





References.

Wikipedia, 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ko%C5%A1utnjak, viewed
17th November 2019