Hey, Jim,
I listened omni until about 05Z, and then had to give it up, just too tired..
From the west, I worked K7RAT, his CQ, at 0312Z, VE6WZ, my CQ, at
0204Z. Tree was as loud as I've ever heard him, louder than a lot of
east coasters and mid america stations. Tree sends grid, I send grid
and done. At 02Z, Steve was expectedly weak, but easily workable.
So I have to say that the band was not the problem, though with its
now expected occasional deep QSB.
Overall I only managed to work 10 west coasters.
Not interested in west coasters? In a Stew Perry I'm ALWAYS interested
in those sweet 6,7,8 point QSO's. I'm always listening for them. So is
any high scorer. The rule, work as many of the local area as
possible, work as many EU as possible, AND work as many of those 6,7,8
pointers as possible.
Last night I only managed to work 10 west coast 6,7,8 pointers. Low
for me, even though Tree was as loud as I've ever heard him.
In this contest I would never think that high scorers were not
listening to work the maximum west coast, that's just throwing away
points.
In stations where they have the room for such things and work 160
contests, many have a NE beverage AND a NW beverage, often doing
diversity with NE in one ear and NW in the other. They work all the
west coasters they can hear.
I think people just didn't get on at all. 160 supposed to be dead
during solar max, isn't it?
73, Guy K2AV
On Sun, Mar 9, 2025 at 5:51 PM Jim Brown <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/9/2025 1:52 PM, Steve Harrison wrote:
> > most of the east coast seemed to be having
> > lots of trouble copying westerners although they were strong out here.
>
> My experience on Topband is that all the east coast seems interested in
> is EU. Many are listening with arrays focused on EU, and those with
> transmitting arrays transmitting in that direction. When prop to EU
> dies, they go to bed. Add to that the increased noise levels from
> electronic power-handling, like SMPS power supplies and chargers,
> variable-speed motor controllers, and solar systems.
>
> All of which is why I've been increasingly losing interest in Topband
> contesting over the years. 10-15 years ago, I got to 47 states for WAS
> on Topband QRP (5 W), all CW, when noise levels were much lower, and
> enough east coast stations listened west after EU shut down. The only
> state I've been able to add since was WV, using JT65. The states I'm
> missing are SC and VT. And the big gun VT Topbanders have always been
> deaf to the west -- they're hard to work legal limit with a 100 ft Tee
> vertical!
>
> 73, Jim K9YC
> Santa Cruz, CA
>
>
>
>
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