Hi Jim:
Great points.
>From the other side of the equation here ...we often have a tough call.
Even under perfect conditions .."one way propagation" is often a reality
here ..especially when the bands are marginal. With KL7RA gone, the rest of
the Alaska ops have more ...ordinary stations. There are a couple of guys
...KL2R and WL7F who have very low local noise levels ...but they are way
North ..and completely at the mercy of aurora and absorption. The rest of
us live in South Central Alaska (Anchorage and burbs) and tend to have good
antennas for the high bands ...wires for low bands. We all get out better
than we hear ..and it is especially drastic on the low bands. It's always a
tough call on whether to try and run on 40 or 80 ...because I am aware of
how frustrating it is to hear a station fairly loudly ...running what seems
to be an unmonitored CQ loop ...but ..once in a while ..things do line up
well enough to make it work.
Speaking of 40M ...I was at KL2R for this one ..we did a M/S ..myself, Larry
(N1TX/KL2R), and WL7F. I was blown away by how well we did on 40M. The
station is in Two Rivers AK ...about 20M NE of Fairbanks ..and 70 or so
miles South of the Arctic Circle. Larry put up a pair of phased 40M
verticals last year ..almost 500Qs on 40 for this one ..that is amazing for
that far North. 2000+ Qs and 1.1 Million points overall.
73
Steve KL7SB
-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Jim
Brown
Sent: Sunday, February 21, 2016 10:09 PM
To: cq-contest <cq-contest@contesting.com>
Subject: [CQ-Contest] K9YC ARRL DX QRP
Many thanks to all the great operators who worked to pull my QRP signal out
of the noise. I am amazed at your ears and your skill! Contesting from
Northern California is hard enough, but reducing power by 25 dB is like
having both hands tied behind your back!
I have come to working DX contests for two reasons. First, the challenge of
QRP stresses operator skills and emphasizes good antennas and choices of
band and operating times. With 1,500W, you can make QSOs when the band is
marginal; with QRP, you've got to do it when the band is optimal.
QRP also exposes the weaknesses of stations on the other end who have put
all their energy into transmitting, with little emphasis on receive.
There are dozens of stations who missed my QSO points because they couldn't
hear! D4C got me on four bands, while E2X missed me on four.
Hearing means decent RX antennas and working at killing local noise.
I've spend weeks chasing down and killing noise in my QTH, and I still have
new noises from my neighbors that I have to chase. It's a never ending
battle -- my noise on 160M has gone to the roof, especially to the east and
northeast.
Lots of stations, especially in Asia, were CQing endlessly with no
responses. The early contesters in China got the message, and some of those
early guys have established contest stations that can hear really well. This
time around, E2X was loud, but deaf. There were many others.
If you can't hear them, you can't work them. I'm planning an NCJ article on
this topic. Again, thanks to all who did the heavy lifting on their end to
put me in their log.
73, Jim K9YC
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