Monday 12 April 2010

DX Is Out There Despite The Marginal Conditions

zl1pwd Last night or early this mornning to be more specific, just before turning in (04:53Z) I checked the bands – quiet'; until I saw a trace on the waterfall. It was ZL1PWD, Peter in New Zealand calling CQ. His signal was in and out but I decided to give a call anyway. We did manage a nice qso and Peter sent an email with a screen capture of the contact. Signals were in and out with heavy fades but there was DX rolling in. It’s been awhile since I’ve heard signals so late into the night on 20 meters. I did a quick check of the other bands but nothing above 20 meters. Earlier in the evening there had been a 6 meter opening but it was short and I missed it. Contact was made with the FT-950 with 20 watts to the Cushcraft R6000. I had a tune around 160 meters and there was a fair bit of activity and not much atmospheric noise. This is a great time of the year, during the spring equinox, for DX at odd times of the day or night.

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