Have had some very good conditions recently - especially early mornings. This morning, 9N7AA was extremely strong - loud - but with severe multipath echo - even with all filters open - ringing so bad that it sounded like two stations zero beat - sending and stopping precisely at the exact same time.
I tried working him (Nepal would be ATNO) but no luck. Had my shot though.
Numerous other stations were also experiencing severe multipath effects as well. Especially from Asia and Asiatic-Russia.
Worked most of these within just a few minutes of each other today:
JH1HDT on 80M
RA9Y on 20M (zone 18, last one I need for WAZ but he has zero QSL info)
4S7B very loud - gave me 579 on 20M
SP8ARY - 20M very strong
4Z4DX on 12M - also quite strong
OM3CW on 10M - him real 599 - gave me 579
Will definitely be listening again tomorrow morning. I suspect that in anticipation of 3Y0J, there may be an uptick in DX stations on-the-air right now.
Good hunting to all.
Randy / WB9LUR
Don't always try for a short path beam heading to these stations especially those in central asia, you should Try beaming long path or even move your antenna around listening to see if there is abetter path to these central Asia stations.
Out here in the Pacific Northwest I have been working the indian ocean and central asia but only by long path on 20 to 10 meters SSB, CW and digi.
9n7aa was worked on 12 meters and several VU's in India on 10 meters over the past two weeks as was 3B8 on cw in the Indian Ocean and even a 5Z4 and a 7Q in east africa but they were only workable via long path as the direct path was not reliable on any mode for me.
Even late at night on 20 meters cw whilst using a single vertical I found long and short path distortion was terrible to the indian ocean and central asia and as a result I phased a second vertical which gave me 20 db rejection in either direction and enabled me to choose the best beam heading, which most times was long path.
Also our early morning european openings on 10 meters ssb, cw and even some 29.3 FM have been a more skewed south path requiring beaming to central africa to work Europe on 10 FM.
The only direct short path that I find consistently reliable especially on 10, and 12 are the South Americans, Pacific, South Africans, Namibians, the Ja's and Indonesia hams but most others especially to Europe, central Asia and the Indian Ocean have been either a large skewed south path or long path.