after few sleepless nites which I spent on 60m band with watching the CY9C I got them 2 days ago on 5373kHz CW. It is my DXCC #60 so I can celebrate small "round" score on this band...
It was not easy as the band is really noisy during summer time with lot of storms and QRN.
I turned ON the radio around 23:30UTC as the preview activity of the CY9C team started at that time. The band was rather noisy and US stations came thru very weak.
After 1.5hrs on the air when I watched all of the channels and activities over there I got their call on 5373 at 01:00UTC. Their signal was really weak with QSB. The operator on the island Will, AA4NC is really very good! Unfortunately he was too fast this nite. His QRQ operation on CW was hard to copy due to high noise level and extraordinary QRN at my location.
I turned the receiving side to an external K9FD RX-loop with W7IUV pre-amplifier and found that it does not help so much. The band was so noisy and the s/n ratio was surprisingly not improved on this system. I noticed that the fading of the signal from CY9C coming at the different time from both antennas. So the diversity mode on my Elecraft K3 was the solution. Thanks to this feature I was able to copy their signal for longer periods.
The reply from CY9C team for my first call I catched without problem. I read my callsign and report very nice. Unfortunately the second part of QSO where they confirmed my report and ended the QSO faded down so I was not so sure if they really confirmed our QSO for few mins. When I replayed the QSO from the .mpeg file I was able to double check that it was all ok and correct.
K3 setting: dSP t3-1 / IF NAR3 / NTCH 540Hz / AGC OFF / PRE OFF / Ant beamed to 330/0 deg. / FL1 / 150Hz used.
Thanks to Will, AA4NC and to the CY9C team for the ATNO and #60 on 60m band!
73 - Petr, OK1RP
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Congats Petr, it was really worth all your effort. Wish you a good and healthy sleep now ;-). Unfortenately I was not able to work them yet on any band. Did hear them for 5 minutes on 17m before they faded into the noise. 73, Bas
ReplyDeleteHi Bas, many thanks. I really believe that You will catch them somewhere at least... or even on 60m band. I passed my message to CY9 team where I am asking them also to operate on 5363,5 CW or QSX from 5405/5373 at least in order to allow to work them by countries with limited WRC band allocation. So we will see if they will get this message and accept it. MNI 73 - Petr, OK1RP
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