Tuesday night tropo…
I didn’t spend too much time on the radio on Tuesday evening, as the cats were requesting entertainment again – which was a pleasure to provide! Being the second Tuesday of the month, it was the 432MHz Activity Contest and there was still some tropo around. The best DX for me was DF0MU in JO32 – which I was more than happy with. It was also good to work GD8EXI (IO74) – the first time I have worked GD from Longworth on 432MHz. Interestingly, like last month, he was at his strongest when I was beaming southeast. A reflection, perhaps? I was also pleased to hear some northerly IO93/IO84 squares which are less common for me.
Oh. And a special mention to the contester, whose callsign I will not mention, who when I called him first, he only got my suffix. No problem. He asked if I could give my prefix. No problem, I did. Then he proceeded to moan that he hadn’t got my full callsign! I seem to remember mentioning when I wrote the contest column in RadCom, that it’s best to be nice to the people who call you – otherwise they might not call you again. This gentleman won’t be hearing from me for a while, then!
Tropo seems to have faded down mostly now, although there was something weak on 145.650 this morning, either GB3PO or ON0WV – I couldn’t tell. Apparently the forecast for the weekend could be favourable for more tropo. Let’s hope so!