Hi Jim,
During the Stew this weekend the QRN due to lightning was peaking 25 dB
over my noise floor when listening on my TX antenna and this was from the
big sting of lightning over the southern states like Louisiana, Georgia,
Mississippi as well as a long string in the Atlantic Ocean.
Thankfully my 3 different pennants helped me pick out some West Coast
stations and I even worked 9A3JH but I had to keep asking for repeats from
folks and I still will likely have some busts. My pennants don’t reject
high arrival angle signals much and I wish they did as my good friend Mike
(W9RE) who has both a YCCC RX vertical array as well as a BSEF RX vertical
array did not think the band was too noisy which surprised the heck out of
me. I suspect Mikes experience was much different than mine due to his
much narrower RX beam-width but also due to his RX antennas having much
better high angle rejection which likely helped him with the lighting.
I also noticed some odd flutter/rapid qsb on some signals at times and now
see there was a geomagnetic disturbance.
I also agree with you more than you can imagine about locally generated QRN
from modern electronics being a big problem.
That’s my take from the Midwest US during the contest, and I still had
great fun working friends and new acquaintances:)
73,
Don wd8dsb
On Sun, Mar 9, 2025 at 5:55 PM Jim Brown <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote:
> On 3/9/2025 1:52 PM, Steve Harrison wrote:
> > most of the east coast seemed to be having
> > lots of trouble copying westerners although they were strong out here.
>
> My experience on Topband is that all the east coast seems interested in
> is EU. Many are listening with arrays focused on EU, and those with
> transmitting arrays transmitting in that direction. When prop to EU
> dies, they go to bed. Add to that the increased noise levels from
> electronic power-handling, like SMPS power supplies and chargers,
> variable-speed motor controllers, and solar systems.
>
> All of which is why I've been increasingly losing interest in Topband
> contesting over the years. 10-15 years ago, I got to 47 states for WAS
> on Topband QRP (5 W), all CW, when noise levels were much lower, and
> enough east coast stations listened west after EU shut down. The only
> state I've been able to add since was WV, using JT65. The states I'm
> missing are SC and VT. And the big gun VT Topbanders have always been
> deaf to the west -- they're hard to work legal limit with a 100 ft Tee
> vertical!
>
> 73, Jim K9YC
> Santa Cruz, CA
>
>
>
>
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