April 12th

by / Thursday, 12 April 2018 / Published in Actualité, news

Big rains with strong winds generated a lot of parasitic noise and did not allow us to be present on 160m yesterday. However the 30/40m and sometimes the 80m were excellent, especially with the Americas. This area is currently the most difficult to contact and will remain the target of our efforts. The openings are relatively short compared to Europe or Japan. We sometimes hear a bit of frustration from Europe when we ask for NA Only but you have to understand that the EU openings are much frequent and longer, and with much better signals. The NA QSOs currently represent 16% against 25% JA and 57% EU.

The days follow each other but are not alike. The high bands are much better than yesterday with long openings to the EU and Asia up to 10m. Strong tides forced us to some maintenance on the antennas which were a little too close to the shore. We have further refined our different receiving systems for the lower bands.

For tonight and tomorrow we will continue our efforts on 17 and 20m until their closure, then 30 and 40m. The 80 and 160 will also be activated from our SS to give new chances to the JA.

We remain focused on our objectives and adapt our strategy on a daily basis to increase the number of “unique” callsigns, and give a chance to the most difficult areas. At the same time we will be on the low bands as much as possible.

The team starts of course to feel the fatigue beacuse a lack of sleep, radios shifts, maintenance of the site, but we are more than ever extremely motivated!

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