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"During the (1998 VHF/UHF) contest we worked 255 QSO's in
120 Grids on 6-meters... About 100 stations were TROPO to California
and Oregon, and Southern Nevada (Las Vegas). About 125 stations were
E Skip on Saturday during the first 4 hours of the contest. The rest
of the 30 contacts were the most fascinating because I can only explain
it like this:
I would point the antenna to Calgary, Canada. The band is definitely
not, I repeat not, open for skip. I would call "CQ Contest".
After several calls, a faint partial call sign would come back to
me, either part of my call, or part of someone calling me. I would
respond with callsign and grid (N7LQ DN01). The station at the other
end seemed to have no problem with my 1500 watts and impressive ERP.
What was unusual was the way I had to almost coerce the operator at
the other end to repeat his call and grid square enough times to catch
only a burst of the information each transmission, sometimes taking
5 minutes to complete a contact. It gave the appearance of him hearing
me by "scatter" and me hearing him off of "meteors"
with the likelyhood he was at lower power.
The stations would be in Canada, usually 800 to 1500 miles away. Some
very rare grids for us and definitely not in the direction of any
prevailing E Skip during the contest. The contact would be exactly
in line with the antenna azimuth! I would move the antenna 3 degrees
to the side and repeat the scenario. Quite a rush I might say.
In conclusion, for only a small E Skip window during the contest,
we managed to work more 6-meter stations than in any of the past 7
years from the same site. The antenna has always been mounted in the
same location. We have only had 1500 watts for the 1997 & 1996
contest, but have never experienced scatter like this. My choice would
be to use the Raibeam (RB-506) again next year."
73's...Dave/K7UI From FOX MOUNTAIN/DN01
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