[Fwd: LF: lf transatlantic]

[Andre' Kesteloot]

John Currie wrote:

> Hi all ,  Just some thoughts.  I only have anecdotal evidence for what I
> am about to write but anyway here are some feelings.   Since we went to
> 30 second dots I cant remember a night when I didn't see a UK station
> here except when either
>          1.  Nobody was transmitting   or
>          2   I had severe 60 HZ pickup
>                 In other words the path between US es Nova Scotia  is
> available to stations with erp of the order of Laurie's 0.3 watt or
> better most of the time.  I have seen M0BMU or G3AQC  when 129.9 or
> DCF39 were as weak as S-4.  Normally the 2 german stations are S-5 to
> S-7  .  Last night at around  0400  128.9 was S-8 but G3AQC was weaker
> than usual.  On at least one occaision M0BMU was received well even
> though the K index was a 3.
>             I feel the path is therefore quite reliable and QRSS with 30
> second dots will produce QSOs more than half the winter nights.  Some
> nights such as when I visited Jack'S house condx can be bad and even
> Jack's signals are not reliable.  But even that night  we saw MM0ALM for
> 1/2 hour and I believe Jack would have been  at least "M" copy if he
> were using 30 second dots rather than 3 sec dots.
>            QRN doesn't seem to have much effect.  I have seen EU stns
> through static crashes during snow storms that were 10 db over S-9 on
> peaks.  During precipitation static caused by charged snowflakes all
> sigs were wiped out.
>           My belief is that we will be able to get through even during
> most of the summer.  i would like to continue testing throughout
> summer.  I do not think we need to have continuous beaconing.   Perhaps
> 20 minutes at top of hour from Eu and 20 min at bottom of hour from NA .
>
>          My sunset now is around 2200Z  so I don't start seeing Eu
> stations til 2130Z So no point in starting before 2130Z.   My sunset at
> summer solstice will be around 2345z So starting time then of 2315Z
> would be good .  Is anybody interested in continuing through summer?
>         Last night had 60 Hz trouble only saw G3AQC
>         73 all de John VE1ZJ