After comparing my 2012 E season loggings with those of the 1011 season, I think I can conclude that this year's E season equalled last year's at
this location and perhaps even slightly bettered it, but only slightly. This is my own experience. Other DXers have commented that the season has been much worse this year. SPoradic E conditions are hugely selective though, so comparisons are probably meaningless. If you were to average it out over the whole of Europe and North America I think the overwhelming opinion would be that the 2012 Es season was well down on last year's, which in itself was quite poor also. However, while my personal logbook show a certain "quantity" of loggings, there was certainly far less in the way of "quality". Not one single instance of double hop was experienced.
Looking at it on a month-by-month basis: The season seemed to begin well in May, but then went downhill before the end of the month, leaving June with large gaps of several days with no Es. July wasn't much
better, if at all and August was average - maybe even slightly better than July, but after counting the number of loggings I had
this season I notice that here are only slightly fewer loggings than
during last year's season. There were at least three good, nationwide Spanish
openings this year while I was away and so I probably missed a
fair number of loggings. Last year I was in the fortunate position
of being by the radio virtually all the time and I was conscious of
the fact that I didn't miss any good openings.
As mentioned above, as far as quality goes, this year was definitely down on last
year. Double hop materialised on at least two occasions last season
whereas this year I am not aware of a single instance - unless you
class the Moroccan transmitter at Assa as double hop at 2800+. I
suspect the Es on this occasion hooked up with a tropo extension at
the far end of the path. Maybe that is classed double hop though.
I am always interested to hear other's views, but overall I am satisfied with a
good haul of loggings this year, even if the quality wasn't quite
there.
It was also pleasing to get a lot of different stations this year whereas I had
expected a huge amount of repetition.
By the way, Norway was the only main European country which didn't make it here on Es. My Turkish goal didn't materialise
either, but then Turkey is probably just a tad over the single hop
limit from me. Maybe next year.
No comments:
Post a Comment