Hi Jon, Tom, Pete, Denny & all...
Agreed, if a signal is fairly in the clear and strong enough to even tickle
an S-meter, another 1.5 dB probably won't make much difference in
readability.
OTOH, under contest and rare DXpedition conditions and when propagation is
marginal, it's pretty common to have dozens (or even hundreds?) of calling
stations of virtually equal strength and barely audible in the "real noise"
-- cumulatively, they're almost like random noise. [Stateside example: 5
watt JA's on 10 or 15M after the big gun JA's have left the band; we strain
to copy their modulation of the noise.]
If the listening guy hears everybody's (signal)/(noise + noise-like QRM)
ratio as ~0 +0/-3 dB, which seems common to me under marginal path
conditions (band opening/closing or low path ionization for any reason),
then IMHO +1-3 dB often ("statistically"?) makes enough difference to put a
station significantly higher in the pecking order -- ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL,
of course.
Such a small edge may be irrelevant to all you relaxed and casual pileup
participants, but I think it's sufficient to marginally improve the success
rate, reduce the stress level and/or improve the score a little bit for the
rest of us.
If you suspect that I'm biased, you're of course correct - I think it's
class AB but my wife insists it's class C. Regardless, my opinion rests on
experience that every DX/contester probably has shared. Personally, I'd
LOVE to have a 1.5-2 dB edge all the time.
So if all you OTHER guys in the pile with ALPHAs would just turn your drive
down to about 30W until I get this one in the log...
73, Dick W0ID
>>Original message
> From: Jon Ogden [SMTP:jono@enteract.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 1998 7:43 AM
To: T A RUSSELL; AMPS@contesting.com; John_Nelson@compuserve.com
Subject: Re: [AMPS] Re: SSB Power Output
>I don't think anyone is saying that. We are talking about the 1.75 dB
difference or so between 1KW and 1.5KW. The power difference between 100
W and 1000W IS a big difference.
> However, power isn't everything. If I can hit a DX station on 100 Watts
and he hears me 10 dB over 9, then running 1 KW ain't gonna do too much
except possibly IM his receiver's front end!
73,
Jon
KE9NA
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