Hi everyone
I’m off the island after 36 hours of being on the air. I’ll do a write up on the website in the next couple of days but first things first – the log is updated at https://oc196.wordpress.com/qsl-log/ – I REALLY REALLY REALLY NEED SLEEP!!!!!!
Horrendous band conditions but still plenty of NA and EU in the log however the UK was almost impossible despite lots of Scandinavians getting in the log.
Second day was almost a total blackout on 20m and higher but 40m worked well. CW portions of the band on 30m/20m/17m/15m were dead on that second day too and nothing on digital segments either. So CW might have helped a little but it wouldnt solve the problem. I’m so glad I put up a proper 40m antenna, 1/4 wave aluminium vertical with 32 radials and 400W.
Tomorrow I’m driving from Malacoota VK3 to Geelong VK3 so I’ll do a write up tomorrow night. It was the toughest 1200 QSOs over 36 hours I’ve ever done, just 2 hours sleep and lots of auto-CQing with no response – there were times I felt like I was in VY0 with the north lights!!! I saw the K index was way high
73s de Craig VK5CE
