ZD8SIX on Ascension
	Tuesday 7th November

The 'one-boat' bus stop

Excellent peak cycle-23 propagation today! The first opening started at 09:40 and went on until 12:07 and covered lots and lots of north European areas for a change. Just in time as I am departing tomorrow! An amazing amount of QSB; 59 one second and gone the next! New countries included G and GI (hooray!).

Bit annoyed this morning. On my first (and probably only opening to G) I was called a second time by a station. My 1st QSO with him was 5NN on the 5th. He called me again on CW this morning and was also 5NN. THEN, he calls me again straight after on SSB for a phone QSO! I had to answer because he was so strong but how many others did I miss by having to do this?

Another challenge when operating both on CW and SSB is that when I had a strong pile up on SSB working many stations and propagation starts to disappear, I switched to CW to winkle out those weak stations. I then get overwhelmed by those I have already worked on SSB recalling me again on CW! This is a REAL pain unless you just operate on a single mode. AND, the number of stations that continually called me asking for my locator code was unbelievable!

Just been up to Travellers Hill NAAFI and brought the presents! Mainly the Ascension Island tee shirts and pullovers. That should keep the family happy!

The 1860 Victorian gun on Cross Hill located above Georgetown	One of the two the WW2 gun taken from HMS  Hood in the 1930s located above Georgetown More information

Looks like I missed (but I was QRV) on an opening to California as I saw that ZD7VC has had several QSOs at around 20:00. All I can say is that I published my telephone alert number and it wasn’t used by the K6s. I was CQing throughout this period I believe. Later in the evening though it opened up long-path again and I added one or two exotic calls such as FO0PAM on Marquesas Island (wow!) and BV2DP in Taiwan. Many s9+ stations followed these from JR6, Okinawa. What a fantastic day and got to bed at 02:00! Countries added: FO, BV, KP3, 9Y4, and HI8. Looks like I achieved my ambition to experience a good long-path opening anyway.