I went into this contesting thinking the QRP record for Oregon would
be easy to break with 10 hours or so of effort. WRONG!! While
conditions sounded good before sunset - conditions seemed really poor
to many areas of the country. I never did manage to work Texas, or
much of anything on the east coast.
About half of my QSOs were made CQing and having west coast guys
answer me. I would find a "clear" frequency, which was likely
something a strong European was using (which we could not hear at all
out west). Occasionally, I would hear someone call and work whomever
it was I couldn't hear.
There was one case where W8JI called me. This was during a time that
NOBODY was calling me. I think I CQ'd for 20 minutes and he was the
only guy who called. I was pretty certain he must had been calling
someone else - and I sent him a "?" - but he came back and signed his
call again. I sent a report - and was hoping they would send my call
to remove any doubt about what was going on - however, all they did
was send 5NN GA.
Now - if I had been running other stations on the east coast - I
probably wouldn't have wondered about this - but since nobody else was
hearing me - I was stunned that they could hear me. I eventually
found their CQ frequency and worked them again.
This brings up a point - there are a lot of times on 160 where it is
very useful for the search and pounce station to send the callsign of
the CQing station - so the CQing station knows for sure who is being
worked. The discussion of off frequency stations also highlighted
this need - as that prevents someone from "working" and unintended
station if their frequency is slightly off.
Many people have adopted this operatating practice - and if you are
someone like W8JI who can do "impossible" things - it might be good to
do it more often.
Tree N6TR
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UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
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