06/14/2006 | N0TTW This is the first time that I write in a soapbox where I didn't compete in a specific contest meant for it. But the conditions that were presented on the 6m band (and some areas of the country on 2m), deserved a little investigation.

With all of the people flooding the 6m band during the contest, I was reminiscent of a same incident in the mid 90s (1996 my memory serves) on 2m FM simplex. From mid-Minnesota to South Carolina I had a great conversation with a gentleman (call sign was lost because of missing log, but his name was Tom) who was amazed at talking to me on the simplex calling frequency. At that time I was running 25 watts into a verticle. I was also able to activate repeaters as well from great distances (the furthest ID I heard was from KY) and to hear on some of the repeater frequencies the multi "Kerchunks" of repeaters on the same cordinated frequencies. It was a strange day then as it was during this year's contest.

The information then was not as available as it is now, but it worked (at the time) to determine the cause (TV weather reports, NOAA radio and WWV). Since then I have been looking at this phenomenon at what works for propagation and what has not.

I will say this, that many contacts were not just from Es. Tropo also played a big part in 6 and some of the 2m. The pictures to the left are a snapshot (Water vapor pic is 2 hours earlier then the rest) of a moment in time during the contest.

I wanted to provide these pics as to enlightned many operators that thought what was E, may really be Tropo. Draw your conclusions from these pics and decide!

Some things to note are the Ground Clutter on some of the radar sites, dark areas next to clouded areas on the water vapor view and the Tropical storm that will play a part on the east coast the next day.

Sorry that I lost the weather map that showed the fronts, as this would add more insight.

Chris

-- N0TTW