Sharp Spike into the Northeast

I get unusual "spikes" into the Northeast with my Isotron Antenna's and can almost draw a straight line, right up the coast into New Hampshire and Canada at times. When looking back into the log book at "really good signal reports" I see a distinct pattern.

It's not the antenna.... since the Isotron radiates like a vertical in all directions.

Although West Virginia is noted as the "Mountain State" (and we have almost 100 'peaks' at 4,000 ft or better) I live in the Kanawha Valley, at 600 ft elevation, beside an 8 story apartment building, alongside the river, with 400 ft 'hills' on both sides of me.

I jokingly kid others about bouncing signals off the "gold dome" of the state capitol building just up the street.

This morning I had a great QSO with Don (N1LU) in Tuftonboro, New Hampshire on the 7028 frequency. (1100z) You will usually only hear me on this frequency, in the early morning, since I don't have the filtering to pick out all those "quick" stations that hang out there.

We talked about working each other in a previous NAQCC sprint and the upcoming SKCC straight key sprint tonight and hoped we could work each other again tonight with our straight keys.

I love the '100 year key' I use for those events....

The really unusual thing about the QSO this morning is that we both sent each other 599 reports. Don is 655 miles from me...