W2VW Whirl-Wide on 29.060 10-22-2012

[W1AEX]

As I tuned around and worked some of the fine signals out of Europe this morning in the AM portion of 10 meters I found this famous guy hanging out on 29.060 MHz workin' whirl-wide. I was kind of amazed at how strong his signal became at times although the synch detector seemed to unlock if his signal slipped into a fade so that the sidebands were momentarily stronger than the carrier. In response to some requests from AM operators to speed up the lock time I'm guessing that Flex also might have shortened the hold time as well. I hope it becomes an adjustable parameter in the next release. At the end of the recording you can hear a very strong DO7FOX giving Dave a call.

Rob W1AEX

[W2VW]

Thanks for posting Rob.

I'm a retired businessman living in Florida on a pension.

[WA3VJB]

All I heard was "QSL via the bureau"

[Pete, WA2CWA]

I was off and on between 9:30 and 11:30 AM this morning. Kept bopping back and forth between 6 and 10 hoping for a 6 meter opening but all I heard out of Europe was some scatter signals on 6. On 10 this morning, I worked GU4LJC, UR5QGC, MM0IMC, RA4FP, SV3DCX, ON6PF, G3YQH, 2E0ZDX, IW5EKR, M0AFF, GW3TMP, and EI3GWB. Even heard some Russian taxicab stations and a potpourri of other weird signals. Early on, the high point comments were "your signal is very strong", "your audio is loud and clear", "you're the only station I hear from the US". I saw I even made the "DX Cluster" several times. I weakly heard you Rob, working I believe a "G" station somewhere around 29.06 MHz around 11:15 (give or take a few minutes).

[W2VW]

Thanks for warming up the band Friday night Pete. After you went to dinner I worked 3 JAs in a row on AM of course.

[W1RKW]

10m hot to JA and VK land and strong too!  Haven't heard this region in years both on AM and SSB.  Glad to hear them.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Thanks for warming up the band Friday night Pete. After you went to dinner I worked 3 JAs in a row on AM of course.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!
We always sit down for dinner around 6. Maybe I should eat dinner at 4. I had a similar issue back on 6 meters during the last cycle secondary peak when the Far East would break through to the East Coast late in the afternoon.  Get the dinner call and then they pop in for a few minutes.

Bad 10 meter day today. The Russian cabbie told me in very bad English to get off his channel. 

[W2VW]

Timing, luck and a picture of Don Wallace in the shack......

[W1RKW]

Band shifted from south to west.  JA's coming 10+ over S9 at this time in the lower portion of 10m SSB.

[W1AEX]

Today was another interesting day on 10 meter AM. As I was tuning around working a few guys here and there across the pond I noticed a big pile of activity on 29.010. The reason was because Chuck - K1KW was fired up there on his Flex 5K with the homebrew 8877 feeding his 4 (yes that's four) stacked 10 element log periodic antennas on the 120 foot rotatable tower! Chuck's backscatter signal here was as loud as some of the European stations he was working! I called in and worked Chuck just as he was shutting down to head back to the office. That turned out to be good for me as I inherited his pile-up and had a very long string of stations to work! One of the ones who got away enjoyed the AM activity so much that he wrote about it and sent me an email with the link to his article:

http://g4vxe.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/a-glorious-fusion-of-old-and-new-on.html

I caught a bit of Chuck and Stuart - M1SMH in the attached mp3. It sure would be nice if these band conditions continue for a long, long time!

Rob W1AEX