Læs LA0BY’s beretning:

Exceptional tropo condx on November 22

The Hepburn tropo forecast looked promising for the evening, so I decided to go
to my hilltop location at 500 m asl despite the grim temperatures (-5 deg C). 
Upon arrival, I set up 2m and 70cm antennas first, but I also took along my 23cm 
equipment (you never know ...). 

Immediately after switching on, my most optimistic expectations were exceeded: 
Stations from the Baltics and Ukraine had good signals on 2m, but even better on 
70 cm. But I could not trust my ears when I heard UA6AQN calling CQ on 70 cm, and
he even replied on my call - this was really incredible! So I favoured 70 cm and
the log was soon filling up with lots of DX, some in squares that I still have not 
worked on 2m. RZ6DD and R6AM from LN04 became my new ODX on 70 cm, both > 2600 km
in distance. Over the evening I had a rather stable duct to UA6 but only on 70 cm.

After two hours of operation it felt I should try also on 23 cm, so I reconfigured
my setup to have only 23 cm and 70 cm antennas up. And it appeared the condx were
good also on 23 cm, but of course much fewer stations were QRV. LY, EW and SP were
worked easily. I knew that UA6 was calling on 23cm but could not hear anything. 
Unfortunately stations in Ukraine are not allowed to operate on 23 cm, I am sure it
would have been possible to make a QSO. 

Late in the evening I changed my configuration back to 2 m and 70 cm antennas. Then
RZ6DD and UA6AQN came in on 70 cm even stronger than before and asked for 23 cm ...
I was QRV until about 24 UTC, but did not work anything new in the last hour, while
UA6AQN was still rolling in. The only station I heard but could not complete with 
was UY5HF on 70cm. Can it get any better?

LA0BY in JO59IX wkd via Tropo on 144 MHz:			
2018/11/22	17:11	EW2BZ	KO34OD	1185 km
2018/11/22	17:14	UR5LX	KO70WK	1899 km
2018/11/22	18:00	EU1AI	KO33SV	1219 km
2018/11/22	18:04	UR3VKC	KN68NO	1911 km
2018/11/22	18:07	UT9UR	KO40XD	1632 km
2018/11/22	18:09	EU1AI	KO33SV	1219 km
2018/11/22	18:11	LY3DE	KO25SJ	1015 km
2018/11/22	18:19	US8AR	KO60AR	1683 km
2018/11/22	18:24	UR8GZ	KN66RT	2082 km
2018/11/22	18:25	UT8AL	KO61WP	1705 km
2018/11/22	18:28	EU3AI	KO22CE	1201 km
2018/11/22	22:43	UY5HF	KN66HP	2059 km
RIG: IC-821H + PA 180W + 9-ele-yagi				
				
LA0BY in JO59IX wkd via Tropo on 432 MHz:				
2018/11/22	17:17	UR5LX	KO70WK	1899 km
2018/11/22	17:18	EW2BZ	KO34OD	1185 km
2018/11/22	17:26	UT4LA	KN89CW	1954 km
2018/11/22	17:30	UT8AL	KO61WP	1705 km
2018/11/22	17:33	EW6X	KO45IM	1173 km
2018/11/22	17:41	UA6AQN	KN96VC	2448 km
2018/11/22	17:42	EW6FS	KO35LB	1110 km
2018/11/22	17:44	LY3DE	KO25SJ	1015 km
2018/11/22	17:49	LY1FX	KO25TL	1014 km
2018/11/22	18:30	EU3AI	KO22CE	1201 km
2018/11/22	18:32	UR8GZ	KN66RT	2082 km
2018/11/22	18:35	LY2CH	KO15OV	864 km
2018/11/22	18:47	EU2AA	KO34KI	1153 km
2018/11/22	18:49	RZ6DD	LN04MX	2606 km
2018/11/22	18:51	R6AM	LN04NX	2611 km
2018/11/22	18:54	UT8LE	KN79WW	1937 km
2018/11/22	19:27	R6AM	LN04NX	2611 km
2018/11/22	19:38	LY2R	KO15VS	902 km
2018/11/22	20:18	UT6UG	KO50EI	1634 km
2018/11/22	20:38	UT3UCP	KO50GM	1628 km
2018/11/22	20:42	UT8AL	KO61WP	1705 km
2018/11/22	20:43	UT5VD	KN68MT	1889 km
2018/11/22	21:46	US5WU	KO20DI	1369 km
2018/11/22	21:53	RZ6DD	LN04MX	2606 km
2018/11/22	22:09	EU2AA	KO34KI	1153 km
2018/11/22	22:12	UA6AQN	KN96VC	2448 km
2018/11/22	22:26	SQ5TF	KO02WT	1050 km
2018/11/22	22:33	LY2BBF	KO24PR	1048 km
2018/11/22	22:36	UR8GZ	KN66RT	2082 km
RIG:IC-821H + PA 120W + 17-ele-yagi								
				
LA0BY in JO59IX wkd via Tropo on 1296 MHz:			
2018/11/22	19:44	LY2R	KO15VS	902 km
2018/11/22	19:49	EU4AX	KO13VP	1060 km
2018/11/22	19:57	LY2HM	KO15CX	809 km
2018/11/22	19:59	EW6FS	KO35LB	1110 km
2018/11/22	20:02	SP4MPB	KO03HT	911 km
RIG: FT-817ND + XVTR + 23-ele-yagi				


About 80 % of my contacts were made in CW, the others in SSB, and none in FT8.
UT6UG wanted to try in FT8 but I could convince him to give SSB a chance and it
worked easily. Signal reports were mostly in the high end (559-599) so what do
you need FT8 for then?

Back home I did a litlle path analysis for the longest distance contacts with RZ6DD and R6AM. The path profile shows there were no mountains between both ends.