Though I have had the cough and not too much energy, 2m has been good to me, mostly via FT8. When the voice is not good, it is a much better mode, and it is excellent for monitoring the propagation.
2m:
Coming back home on the 27th (I think) I noticed a cluster of spots from Southern France, all within a period of 10 minutes and in a relatively small area. This I consider a sporadic E opening, as other stations i Europe were working Es via a reflecting "cloud in the same area. My first experience of 2m Winter Es.
In the same opening LX1JX was worked as a new DXCC on 6m.
28th provided QSOs with 3 G stations and a PA. Not spectacular, but not too bad.
2nd January, just a single QSO on 2m with LY5P
5th gave me quite a surprise: I saw EA2XR in my FT8 display, only 17dB S/N, but I tried anyway. Much to my surprise he answered my first call, and the QSO was made. The surprise is more so, because he gave me a better report than I gave him: -6dB S/N. My guess is that I must have been lucky that he had his antenna precisely in my direction, and that his receiver is top notch (EME system?)
On 10m S01WS was worked.
All through this, I am surprised of the results using an omni-directional (Big Wheel) antenna on 2m, a long, lossy cable, and ... no preamplifier. There is plenty of room for improvement.
This is not a bad start of 2020.
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