Jack,
Looks like your antenna project timing is good for the lower bands. I've been closely listening to 40M and especially 75M DX windows at sunset. On Saturday I heard the JA's JUST starting to come thru on 3799. VERY early this year and usually start around Nov 7th. The Euros were loud.
I'm finding the USA competition is keener than ever before. Guys are using more sophisticated receiving antennas and are hearing better than in the past. There were times before when I would listen to maybe one or two guys who could get a pileup going and actually hear the lower layers calling them. Now there are many guys from the states doing it into Europe.
Last night I started pulling out the "mothballs" from the station and fired up the various systems and rigs, getting ready and familiar with it all again. Gawd, I had forgotten how to get many of the things back on line, especially all the audio and RF switching boxes. I let the amps run wid fils only for a few hours and tested out the IMD, etc. I definately need a cheat sheet to go from ssb to AM these days.
Anyway, hope to hold court into Eu on 75M soon. Then will chnge over to 75M AM and give that a go.
Seez ya on soon and hope to work tandem like before, OM.
T
I need to hire a technician with a good memory to maintain this stuff: