Great morning here, as I had a chance to take a day off from work and take kids to school. I listened on 20 meters afterwards and answered the morning call of KE5SBZ, Ed in Texas. Most of my radio operating is done late evenings, so sending a continuous wave (CW) through the air with the sun up is not a common occurrence....especially on a weekday. Ed and I had a nice QSO with good copy throughout. His signal report to me was 449 (fair signal, readable with minor difficulty) and I replied with 559 (fairly good signal, readable). As we exchanged the usual ham pleasantries (rigs, antennas, age, dogs, and so on....) his signal improved steadily to 589 by the time I signed.
I took this opportunity to plot our locations and information on VOACAP (Voice of American Coverage Analysis Program). I'm just learning to use this great on-line tool. It demonstrates nicely that Ed and I were communicating right along the MUF, maximum usable frequency, around 1200 UTC on 14.050 MHz.
Thanks Ed for the fine QSO, and a little education on propagation.
73 de Phil, N1DN
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