Fellow Lowbanders and Contesters. . .
I'm reminded of some not so new wisdom from operating the contest last night.
Big stations, don't forget to listen for the weak signals. It may be well be
DX calling you among the cacophony of stateside callers. It pays periodically
to stop and ask for DX. That encourages our DX friends to participate in the
contest. . .and you may well be rewarded.
You smaller stations, particularly QRP, most of the bigger stations will really
work hard to pull you through for a successful QSO. Please be patient and
don't mind being repeatedly asked to give your call again. Many topbanders
have multiple antennas in the arsenal, one of which might be the one to pull
out your call coming from a 5w transmitter going to your 40m dipole. There
were some incredibly weak stateside signals last night which took some time to
get, but a little patience on both ends can bring mutual success.
Contest conditions last night were surprisingly good. I purposely avoided
using the TX array and dropped the power to about 700w and ran on the 1/4
vertical (an omni antenna is nice during the contest anyway). My thought was
to be weak enough to avoid having EU call me and not being able to hear them
through all the stateside callers. Well, thankfully, conditions were good and
EU called anyway. It was a exciting to have F, G, LA, OK, ON, S51, and others
call in (at which time I upped the power and went to the TX array). I did,
periodically, try to stop the run and call for DX and several times and, on
several occasions, found an EU station waiting patiently to work me. If one of
us stateside is asking for DX, it would be great for NA callers to stand down
for just a moment. Most did but some persisted in calling anyway, sometimes
blocking an apparent EU caller.
And lastly, a word about the DX window. The DX window is something that is
mutually beneficial and give our DX friends a limited (darn limited with only a
5 KHz) window to be heard. It's simple. . .ignoring this only discourages DX
participation.
I slept in this morning and missed what must have been some terrific conditions
to JA. Hope we have some more great conditions tonight and in the morning.
73 and see you on the air. . .Dave
W0FLS
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Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
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