16-07-2017, 08:16 AM
Well the TT is done.. and I know why they called it a "challenge" !
The storm front that passed over us in SE Qld just before the contest start time "lit" up an insulator (well certainly a high voltage discharge path) on a nearby (??) 11KV power line such that at 5PM the band noise was S3 on 3.6 but jumped to S9 with the QRN at the 6PM start. 7MHz was the least affected - it was only S5-6 there and S7-8 on 1.8MHz. So the signals to hear/work were competing with that plus the S9+20-30 static crashes from the nearby lightning. I was ready to give it away by 7PM but persevered until just short of the midnight finish to end up with just over 100 contacts.
What did surprise me a bit was the lack of operators returning to 7MHz during the second and third 2-hour blocks. Sure there were a lot of international signals throughout the first 200KHz but I found a mostly-unused spot about 7090 and made a few VK contacts there during each block. Elsewhere on that band, there was a definite lack of VK and ZL callsigns.
Congratulations to those with contest exchanges numbering in the 240s and 250s at the end, those numbers were simply not possible at my QTH, not with the power line QRN present at what is normally a quiet location.
73 Doug VK4ADC
The storm front that passed over us in SE Qld just before the contest start time "lit" up an insulator (well certainly a high voltage discharge path) on a nearby (??) 11KV power line such that at 5PM the band noise was S3 on 3.6 but jumped to S9 with the QRN at the 6PM start. 7MHz was the least affected - it was only S5-6 there and S7-8 on 1.8MHz. So the signals to hear/work were competing with that plus the S9+20-30 static crashes from the nearby lightning. I was ready to give it away by 7PM but persevered until just short of the midnight finish to end up with just over 100 contacts.
What did surprise me a bit was the lack of operators returning to 7MHz during the second and third 2-hour blocks. Sure there were a lot of international signals throughout the first 200KHz but I found a mostly-unused spot about 7090 and made a few VK contacts there during each block. Elsewhere on that band, there was a definite lack of VK and ZL callsigns.
Congratulations to those with contest exchanges numbering in the 240s and 250s at the end, those numbers were simply not possible at my QTH, not with the power line QRN present at what is normally a quiet location.
73 Doug VK4ADC
Doug VK4ADC @ QG62LG51
http://www.vk4adc.com
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http://www.vk4adc.com
This Forum is only going to be as interesting as the posts it contains.
If you have a comment or question, post it as it may trigger or answer the query in someone else's mind.