Well I thought I had seen bad conditions but this was really tough on many fronts. Non existent tropo, poor aircraft scatter, the wrong sort of rain - at least the weather was OK on Sunday!

70cm provided some DX with OK2A (SSB) and DM7A (CW) in JO60 worked on AS. TM0W in JN03AA was heard on Sunday by aircraft scatter at 1010km, but I couldn't attract their attention before the plane was gone.Signals from some nearer German stations were quite good on Sunday morning, but DX was hard to find.

Usually aircraft scatter provides straightforward DX on 23cm, but this time it was really hard work with very weak signals and QSB. Maybe there was something wrong with the antenna but the SWR looked fine. The pick of the crop were DM7A, OK2A over 800km, and DF4IAO, DF0YY and DR5T over the 700km mark.

The new 13cm system worked fine, with respectable signals from most stations. The best were DL0GTH and DR9A at 600km+, with other over 500km contacts with DL3IAS,DL3IAE, and DJ5AR all in JN49 square. A couple of tests with F6DZR (IN96) resulted in signals heard both ways but not enough for a complete contact.

On 9cm the best DX was DL3IAE, a test on Sunday with DL0GTH resulted in signals heard both ways but not a completed QSO.

6cm was better with some good AS contacts to DL0GTH and DR9A, with DL3IAE also worked.

As usual 3cm was a bit of a cinderella band here, it needs some work to bring the capability up to the mark. As last year, the usually reliable contact with F6DKW failed completely. G4ASR in IO81 was worked entirely on aircraft scatter at less than 300km, which is quite unusual. The only highlight was the rainscatter on Saturday night that made some QSOs rather easier than usual.

73

John G3XDY

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