Back in 1990, I lived about 30 minutes from 4U1ITU and put about 25K QSOs
in their log during my 14 month stay. I remember operating the ARRL 160
contest and giving out a few QSOs. They each were like pulling teeth.
160CW 1-Dec-90 05:28 1 K5NA/2 599
160CW 1-Dec-90 05:32 2 W1PH 599
160CW 1-Dec-90 05:44 3 K1ZM 599
160CW 1-Dec-90 06:01 4 KZ2S 599
160CW 1-Dec-90 06:19 5 NK1K 599
160CW 1-Dec-90 06:21 6 G0AWF 599
160CW 1-Dec-90 06:25 7 K2WI 599
The QTH is no doubt very noisy - even more than before. I don't remember a
tram back then. The other issue with the station is the path towards the
USA is pretty poor. There are the Jura mountains right in the way. Lake
Geneva is nestled between the Jura and the Alps. The QTH I had at home was
right against the Alps - and I have better success working the West Coast
long path on 40 than I did short path.
For us on the West coast - it would take one of those nights where we can
work several layers deep into Europe - which is a pretty rare event. Then
- that would have to be coupled with someone being focused on the band on
the other end. Probably the best hope would be for some European station
who is normally active on 160 to be able to commute to the station when
they are aware conditions are excellent. This was a possibility when
Pierre, HB9AMO was on the band some 30 years ago (Pierre was the first
signal I ever heard from Europe back in 1986 from Oregon - I heard
"9AMO").
Sadly - that sort of puts it in the same class as working C31 or 3A - which
would probably take a DX-pedition to with big antennas to make it out West
and focused operating over a two week period during good conditions.
Tree N6TR/7
Manning, OR
On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 7:56 AM Raymond Benny <rayn6vr@gmail.com> wrote:
> Tnx for the info.
>
> Wish someone else could put on 4U1ITU again but perhaps with a little
> notice. It's even rarer on the West coast.
>
> Ray,
> N6VR
>
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 24, 2019, 7:01 AM <w5zn@w5zn.org> wrote:
>
> > Last night Dave, K1ZZ, who is in Geneva at the Conference Preparatory
> > Meeting in advance of this fall's WRC, was able to fire up 4U1ITU on CW.
> > 4U1ITU is still a much needed DXCC entity in North America. Obviously,
> > the CQWW 160 SSB contest was this weekend. There is considerable noise
> > on 160 meters at 4U1ITU as you can imagine. Not to help matters, once
> > the tram fires up in Geneva it adds to the hash noise on the band thus
> > the decision to focus on CW rather than struggle even harder with SSB in
> > the contest.
> >
> > Dave chose to operate low in the band, on 1811 KHz initially listening
> > up 1, in an effort to avoid as much of the contest traffic as possible.
> > Later in the night he shifted to listening down at 1805 KHz to avoid
> > some SSB splatter from EU a little higher up.
> >
> > Dave was able to give about 40 USA stations a new one, mostly from
> > around 0500z to 0630z when we had some decent propagation.
> >
> > During the evening there were around 10 stations that came on 1811, or
> > close enough to disrupt the ability to hear 4U1ITU, who were politely
> > asked to QSY and everyone did. As someone who needed 4U1ITU for a new
> > DXCC on 160, and on behalf of the others, I want to thank you all for
> > understanding and being accommodating. It was greatly appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks again.
> >
> > 73 Joel W5ZN
> >
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> >
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