The QRM levels here in EU are only really a big problem during contests. In
early evening our time (1600-2000 UTC) there are a lot of Eastern Europeans on
but as the band is not yet open to the West that is not a problem. I tend not
to operate from around 2200 to 0500 but if I get up early 160 is really quiet
between 0530 UTC and dawn at 0700ish. I can then typically only hear a few USA
stalwarts on the band with no QRM whatsoever.
73
Richard
G3OQT
> On 25 Nov 2019, at 19:13, David Olean <k1whs@metrocast.net> wrote:
>
> OK I guess the problem is QRM levels in EU. The CQ WW weekend is a big
> difference from a typical Wednesday or Thursday evening. I was just getting
> paranoid when many stations in a row could not copy me while I was hearing
> them with great signals and 559 to 589. I am thinking that maybe my Europe
> beverage is working very well. It is long at about 1100-1200 ft (350M) and
> consists of two sets of wires spaced 400 ft apart. (120M) We had terrific
> winds on Friday night and I was not QRV but wondered if any trees had fallen
> in the woods due to the high winds. I had just fixed all my receive wires two
> weeks ago. I walked along my beverage wires today, and found a huge tree had
> fallen across my South beverage and broken the wire. It also ripped the
> termination off the far end. Next I found another tree that managed to fall
> across both the South beverage as well as one of my Europe beverages. I had
> to get the chainsaw out and now I have a full pickup truck load of firewood
> and the two an
tennas are working well again. I also had a tree across the JA beverage. My
East, Southwest, and West wires all were OK. There are a few more I have not
gotten to yet. Maintaining wires in the woods is never ending!
>
> On Saturday night, I saw no problem with the EU wires or the JA wire (It
> works well towards Hawaii and CA) even though they had problems. I did sense
> that my South wire was not so hot. No wonder, it was broken in half and
> laying on the ground with no termination on the southern end. The EU wire
> seemed OK to me even with a tree across it. Same with the JA wire. Oh well,
> at least I got some firewood out of the deal.
>
> 73
>
> Dave K1WHS
>
>> On 11/25/2019 3:08 PM, Fred Kleber wrote:
>>
>> Hi Top Banders,
>> Having operated from the other end on a number of continents, I offer the
>> following explanations of why NA hams may wonder why they can't work distant
>> stations:
>> SE Asia - The amount of non-ham QRM in the ham bands is unbelievable. Most
>> notable are the Indonesian (and probably other countries) fisherman who
>> populate wide swaths of spectrum and have little to no regard for spectrum
>> allocations. They just go buy a cheap ham rig, make it general coverage,
>> and off they go. Additionally the beacons on fishing nets can also create
>> quite a racket. Oh yes, the commercial power suppliers in poorer countries
>> most likely don't even care about repairing line nose. One other challenge
>> is the echo from NA stations which is frequently present on the low bands.
>> Pileups particularly exacerbate this phenomenon.
>> Europe - Here's the cocktail party analogy. When a cocktail party starts, a
>> few people come in the door, grab a drink and start talking to each other.
>> As more people join the party, the room fills up and the ambient noise (QRM)
>> rises. In order to be communicate, guests talk louder. More people join
>> the party and the audible QRM noise floor rises. In the radio world
>> parallel, equate guest's speech with RF and talking louder with running more
>> power. Then consider that many countries don't effectively regulate TX
>> power output, and you have a real mess. Most north american's can't
>> understand when I tell them that if you're not at least S-9 on 80-20 meters,
>> you're most likely not going to be heard.
>> I hope you find this information useful.
>> 73 & good DX,Fred, NP2X / K9VV et al.
>> _________________
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