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Author Topic: 20M was crazy open this late night/early morning  (Read 347 times)

WB9LUR

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20M was crazy open this late night/early morning
« on: February 21, 2023, 02:07:06 AM »

I don't work much phone but I woke up early this morning. It was just before 08:00 and I couldn't get back to sleep. So I flipped on the radio. I had been SWL DXing when using the radio last and it was still tuned to the 19M band, only now it was filled with stations, at 3AM local time.

I switched to 20M, not much on CW but the phone band was crazy. Stations from all around the world. I had 3 quick QSO's - one with a portable VK3 using a homemade Moxon bolted to his car and pointed at Europe. I broke through a simplex phone pileup to work him off the side of his beam. He made that observation during our QSO. Both of us 100 watts. Skewed path openings?

Next I worked a G4 (bicycle mobile) and then a 2E0 friend of his (pedestrian mobile) on the Southern UK coast... heard a Scottish and Australian station exchanging 30 over 9 signal reports. Every other station was EU, VK, RU and loud! Everyone was working everyone it seemed. Nothing exotic or rare but fun hearing the world so strong.

Sometime before 09:40 or so it all faded out...gone. Oh well, back to SWL DXing. I have a mystery signal on 2580 kHz I'm trying to ID - if any of you are SWL.


Randy / WB9LUR



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VE3VEE

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Re: 20M was crazy open this late night/early morning
« Reply #1 on: February 21, 2023, 02:32:45 AM »

Randy, thanks for sharing. It's interesting because three hours prior to that, I turned my radio on to listen to the ANZA DX Net on 20m, but concluded the propagation was poor, all the VK and ZL stations were weak, so I went back to bed.

Marvin VE3VEE
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VK3HJ

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Re: 20M was crazy open this late night/early morning
« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2023, 02:36:52 AM »

I have actually been avoiding 20 m as it's too busy!
Oh, and Dave G4AKC and his mates with their bicycle mobile stations come in S9+ here regularly on the Long Path during our afternoons.
10 m has been open late at night here, and that band is open around the middle of our day, which is late into your night time. I chatted with a station in Minnesota today, with really easy copy both ways.
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WB9LUR

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Re: 20M was crazy open this late night/early morning
« Reply #3 on: February 21, 2023, 02:39:15 AM »

Randy, thanks for sharing. It's interesting because three hours prior to that, I turned my radio on to listen to the ANZA DX Net on 20m, but concluded the propagation was poor, all the VK and ZL stations were weak, so I went back to bed.

Marvin VE3VEE

And now it's dead again. I recorded the entire operating/listening time. The Scottish/VK QSO sounded like locals chatting. Some amazingly strong signals. Right now listening to a mystery sig on 2580 kHz and (also) 4KZ, from Australia on 5055 kHz. They are just in the noise here this morning.

Randy /WB9LUR
« Last Edit: February 21, 2023, 02:45:54 AM by WB9LUR »
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WB9LUR

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Re: 20M was crazy open this late night/early morning
« Reply #4 on: February 21, 2023, 02:42:50 AM »

I have actually been avoiding 20 m as it's too busy!
Oh, and Dave G4AKC and his mates with their bicycle mobile stations come in S9+ here regularly on the Long Path during our afternoons.

Yep, worked G4AKC and 2E0AOO this morning - they were working VK's too - same time.

Randy / WB9LUR
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VK3KTT

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Re: 20M was crazy open this late night/early morning
« Reply #5 on: February 21, 2023, 03:32:17 AM »

yeah i worked ea5jz who is Scottish he was 59+30  and he gave me 59+20 there have been some amazing signals ft8ww in ft had 4 streams and was +08 on 12m. all the bands are very solid its going to be an amazing cycle i have maybe 6 to 8 new ones on 10m this year with 200+ already worked and i have missed plenty. some vk's worked the carribeam via the long path on 6m
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K1VSK

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Re: 20M was crazy open this late night/early morning
« Reply #6 on: February 21, 2023, 05:58:46 AM »

It won’t be long before 20 M will be ‘open’ all night is a routine occurrence. I lost a lot of sleep  a couple of solar cycles ago working the world all night. The good old days are here again.
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N2SR

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Re: 20M was crazy open this late night/early morning
« Reply #7 on: February 21, 2023, 07:12:52 AM »

It won’t be long before 20 M will be ‘open’ all night is a routine occurrence. I lost a lot of sleep  a couple of solar cycles ago working the world all night. The good old days are here again.

There is a debate as to whether 20 was open over night to EU during the contest. 

Some say it was, but with many of the EUs sleeping, it's hard to say.

Some have said that it wasn't open before East Coast sunrise, yet they likely didn't try to find out.

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K1VSK

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Re: 20M was crazy open this late night/early morning
« Reply #8 on: February 21, 2023, 07:38:44 AM »

It won’t be long before 20 M will be ‘open’ all night is a routine occurrence. I lost a lot of sleep  a couple of solar cycles ago working the world all night. The good old days are here again.

There is a debate as to whether 20 was open over night to EU during the contest. 

Some say it was, but with many of the EUs sleeping, it's hard to say.

Some have said that it wasn't open before East Coast sunrise, yet they likely didn't try to find out.

I was sleeping but it should be easy to verify by looking at archived cluster spots during those hours if you are curious.
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N2SR

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Re: 20M was crazy open this late night/early morning
« Reply #9 on: February 21, 2023, 07:49:26 AM »

It won’t be long before 20 M will be ‘open’ all night is a routine occurrence. I lost a lot of sleep  a couple of solar cycles ago working the world all night. The good old days are here again.

There is a debate as to whether 20 was open over night to EU during the contest. 

Some say it was, but with many of the EUs sleeping, it's hard to say.

Some have said that it wasn't open before East Coast sunrise, yet they likely didn't try to find out.

I was sleeping but it should be easy to verify by looking at archived cluster spots during those hours if you are curious.

There were plenty of big gun EUs coming through.  Whether or not the band was runnable is the question. 

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KC6RWI

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Re: 20M was crazy open this late night/early morning
« Reply #10 on: February 21, 2023, 08:33:41 AM »

Yeah, thanks for sharing, I've got to get up and give a listen. Talking to a bicycle mobile would make my day. I am hoping for some good propagation on this cycle,
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KM4SII

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Re: 20M was crazy open this late night/early morning
« Reply #11 on: February 21, 2023, 03:23:16 PM »

The bands have been incredible late at night recently. I had very little time to participate in ARRL DX CW this past weekend since I had several big exams to study for, but I called CQ on 20m around 08z Sunday morning just to see what would happen, and to my memory that is the best signal I have ever put into Europe. I was seeing numerous EU RBN hits coming in in the 30, 40, and even 50db range. I was even louder than K1LZ and K3LR into parts of Europe, and I am only running 100w and a wire! I must have hit the sweet spots in terms of propagation.

The pileup that ensued within seconds of my first CQ was unlike anything I have ever experienced from my lowly QTH. I knew the band was good when a SP running 5w called in with a strong signal. I was vastly unprepared for the unexpected pileup. Since I did not have N1MM keying set up at the moment, I ran the pileup by typing in everything I needed to send by hand into the CWX window in SmartSDR, quickly switching over to my logbook to log the QSO while the other station was TXing. It was rather stressful, but also incredibly fun to feel like a big gun for once. I do not believe I have experienced anything like that before. 40m was also unusually good around the same time too with more massive RBN hits even though it was after EU sunrise.

Also, I was hearing V85RH with a truly incredible signal on both 20m and 15m CW (and even copied him on 10m), but he also produced a truly incredible pileup that I was unable to break, unfortunately.

73
Mason - KK4SII
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KM4SII

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Re: 20M was crazy open this late night/early morning
« Reply #12 on: February 21, 2023, 03:26:44 PM »

There is a debate as to whether 20 was open over night to EU during the contest. 

Some say it was, but with many of the EUs sleeping, it's hard to say.

Some have said that it wasn't open before East Coast sunrise, yet they likely didn't try to find out.
20m was open most of, if not the whole night here. As I mentioned in my previous post, I was LOUD into EU on 20m around 08/09z (before sunrise) and EU was just as loud here. Those that say it was not open all night may have been located further to the north. From what I am gathering, 20m propagation was significantly worse for stations in the Northeast at that time.
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KJ4Z

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Re: 20M was crazy open this late night/early morning
« Reply #13 on: February 21, 2023, 03:55:25 PM »

During the contest, on 10 meters, I heard some OM station and was going to give him a call from here near Seattle.  My amp was tuned up for 15, so I switched it to 10, turned it to standby, and sent my call to get the amp to tune up for 10.  Meter said 800 mW out.  The OM came right back to me with my call perfect, first try.
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