Welcome back.  Seventeen meters ought to be a pretty good band for
you in the summer.  There have been some big auroras and fade-outs,
but from time to time there have been very good conditions.

I was astonished last Saturday night (0215Z) to hear VU2BK calling CQ
on ten meter CW.  There had been plenty of Europeans coming across on
ten for the WPX CW contest earlier in the day; you probably had a
path to Japan, at least.  Solar flux was only 147, and sporadic E may
have been a little involved.  But I worked India on ten meters at
10:30 PM daylight time, then worked RG4H, a Russian station in the
contest, whose signal got way over S9 around 0245Z.  I thought ten
meters wasn't supposed to do such things.  It closed down after 0300,
but 15 meters was open to Europe and Asia when I checked again at
0500Z.  When there's a contest, you find out about some paths you
didn't know existed.  I'm still only running my Drake C-line
barefoot, and not on the air that much, but listening is fun.

73 -- Lloyd, W3IUU

Braille is the solution to the digital divide.
Lloyd Rasmussen, Kensington, Maryland
home:  <[log in to unmask]> <http://lras.home.sprynet.com/>
Work:  <[log in to unmask]>         <http://www.loc.gov/nls/>