Ed is on a trip so I am filling in this month.  The summer has been unusually quiet on my favorite band and from my point of view it has been the worst summer for E skip on 6 meters in a long time.  I realize that judgment is colored by one's personal success or lack thereof.  In my case it was lack of success, but as you can see from the few reports which I got this month most of the new ones reported were on 6 meters.  I used to think that there was a correlation between very hot weather and  the formation of E clouds.  If this were true it should have been a great summer.

     When does 1 + 1 = 0?  In the sad case of  T31 dxpeditions it does. Two European groups planned operations from this rare spot.  When the second group learned of the smaller groups plans to get there first group two canceled their trip with the loss of 300K deposit on a charter.  The first group were close to the island when they learned that their engine which was needed to maneuver into safe waters could not be fixed so they sailed back to Samoa.  In a more recent case 1 + 1 = 2 or maybe I should say 1.5.   The well planned K4VAC Tangier Island operation by our sister club the DDXG were all set up and on the air at 8 AM.  At 11 AM another group arrived and set up operation only 300 yards from K4VAC.  With their 1500 watts they make 40 unusable and their second harmonic wiped out the bottom half of twenty meters.  Fortunately they left at dark and in spite of this setback the DDXG gang improved their previous  best score by 30%.  They wound up with  1003 Q's in 66 countries  for a score of 596,403.  Congratulations!  Can I go along in 2012?

Individual reports:

W4TNX:  Back from a 2 week cruise in the British Isles found CT and several Caribbean stations on 6

W4MYA: Bob had a great summer on 6 with E4X a E7 and two JA's

W4PM: Puck reports 1450 Q's . E4X was new on 20 and 30 in June and July produced FS, 9Y4, FG5 and J39 all on 6 and without a beam.  He is going to replace his feedline with a 600 ohm open wire feeder which will improve performance when it rains,  "if it ever does again" he says.

WD4LBR:  Bruce  found J8, J6, XE and OX on 6 and 4J3M on 30

K4WNW:  Sheila scored with J8, J6 and OX on 6 plus XE and 4J3 on 30 and V4 on 17.

W4DR: 5 new grids on 6. 2 in the USA, 1 in Cuba, 1 in CU4 and one in VO2. The last one was also in a new field, GO

    One last sad note.  I just learned that G3NOH became a silent key on July 25.  He was an officer in the FOC and a well known DX'er and CW op.  He will be missed.  RIP

Bob W4DR