9th Jan 2026

 Extended period of pretty bad condx for long path (skewed,crooked path) to West Coast USA is continuing. Around 10 minutes prior to my sunset I started to hear Greg NR6Q who is usually the first station I hear when band is opening up. Bandmap indicated the N7RY is there also, but Mike is further north and is modest station, compared to Greg and his 3el YAGI @ 125ft.

To my surprise Greg stopped being audible around 3mins to my SS ad I only heard him back around 15mins past my SS. We exchanged reports, 35 for me and 44 for Greg, which is abyssmal (Greg can push S6-7 on good condx and over S9 on excellent opening) and I waited for the path to move up north.

To my amezement another Czech ham, from OK1... started to call someone I was not hearing, actually I was not even hearing a voice or anything indicating a traffic on the other side) and I was checking if my RX systems are working as they should. This wasnt a first time the guy was calling someone. He did work Bob N7UA some days ago but strugled a lot and I started to grow suspicious, so I looked around on the usual westcoast websdrs which seems to be popular and bingo.... a guy from same town on same frequency,sitting on UT websdr... coincidence? I dont think so. 

So unfortunatelly this is happening a lot lately. I understand not everyone has got a space, but I don't have the space either and yes, I am lucky to have access to fileds in winter and yes I am lucky to have one friendly neighbor who let's me run the SE BVGs on top of the apple-trees, but I did work other with both TX Array and phased verticals ( 9 Circle) which were in my garden, so I don;t take "I dont have a space" as excuse anymore. If you can't hear it, you can't work it still matters and no offense, these guys are just taking up the valuable space / time for now shortening openings we have for longpath. 

I had a look on 40m SSB quickly and worked N7RY and WA7LNH + N7EKD before the Chinese OTHR kicked in. I moved back to 80m.

Anyway, I only managed to work Barry VK2BJ on 80CW and AT7WWA on 40CW, and E2WWA 40CW. Apart from that, no real DX. Oh, sorry, I worked ZL2OK on 80m SSB but Davs vy vy weak over here confirming the band is dead.