Hello everyone --
My 160m experiences at 3B7C were fun but also often frustrating.
Highlights were the long/skew path QSOs with stations in zone 3
around 1400z. I was the operator every afternoon (our time) for
1330-1430z, but we only had three days in which anything certain could
be heard from zone 3. The first day yielded some individual characters
but nothing like a callsign. Another day yielded a couple of QSOs and
some fractional calls... and the following day some more QSOs were
completed and several other calls copied (and called without response).
Unfortunately conditions shifted as the geomagnetic field became active
and I never heard anything else from zone 3 during the remaining
afternoons. However, it sure was exciting to work those few stations on
an extreme path. I'm sorry we didn't get more in the log, but at least
we tried consistently.
Most nights were long and difficult. Thunderstorm static levels
varied from "not too bad" to much worse. One evening I had the 8pm to
midnight shift, and thought static was "not too bad" and was grinding in
the JAs and Europeans into the log. At 2000z I turned the radio over to
my relief, who was an HF operator giving top band a try. The next
morning at breakfast he told me conditions were horrible!
Unfortunately, none of us who worked top band shifts saw the ducted
openings into North America that we experienced on many nights from 3B9C
three years ago. Other than the handful of stations with excellent
antenna systems, most signals were weak, about equal to others calling,
and down in the background QRN. "Background QRN" means the propagated
static from thunderstorms far away. "Foreground QRN" means static
crashes from the rain storms around our atoll -- short but very heavy
with high winds (40 knots or more on occasion). So a good night on top
band was letting the CQ machine run, listening to the buzz of stations
calling who were too buried in the background QRN to copy... and waiting
for a propagation bubble to lift one station up for long enough to make
a QSO. Often a station would be strong enough to get his call copied
(or most of the call), but would not last long enough to make a second
transmission. QSO rates were 20-30 an hour... but I remember one hour
of the North American opening when I worked just four stations.
I had to laugh when some of these weak signals would ask for "SSB" or
even "RTTY". There was no chance these guys would be heard on either
mode... and we were reluctant to leave the pile of weak stations to run SSB.
It was obvious to us that many stations had trouble copying us as
well; we found quite a few stations calling us a second (or third) time
10 minutes or so after their initial QSO... probably uncertain that we
had completed and logged the first attempt. This made us reluctant to
increase our CW speed -- but faster calls were more likely to result in
completed QSOs than slow ones.
In this respect, one topband contributor suggested that the 3B7C
operator should have transmitted the other station's callsign multiple
times; e.g., W1ABC W1ABC W1ABC 55N 55N W1ABC BK. We found quickly that
this just did not work at all under the conditions. By the time we made
such a long transmission, propagation would have shifted and W1ABC would
again be inaudible. The most successful approach was to reply
immediately at a fairly high speed for topband (e.g., 27 WPM) with a
very short transmission; e.g., "W1AB? 5NN W1AB?" or, if we had the whole
call, just "K1XYZ 5NN" -- and, with luck, propagation would hold long
enough to hear a report and send our TU message. Many times we never
got the report... or, judging from the duplicate contacts, the other
station never heard the TU.
In many respects it did not matter that some people were calling us
non-stop; we couldn't hear these stations. It was about the only time
when I wasn't annoyed at non-stop callers - hi!
When we announced a listening frequency (e.g., 1831), that is where
we were listening. I rarely tuned as much as a kHz either side of my
announced frequency, as anyone calling that far away was generally
uncopiable or would not be discovered soon enough to capture the full
callsign. The stations who got through were calling very close to the
announced frequency when propagation gave their signal a boost, so that
I could start to copy them right away.
As a North American, I watch sunset approach North America very
carefully! At Rodrigues Island 3B9C, I limited my QSOs to North America
when darkness started to reach the continent. But conditions this month
at St Brandon were completely different. After the first few days (when
all the loud stations were worked), European signals were just as weak
as North American signals. There was no point in calling CQ NA when I
could not copy either a NA or an EU station. And when my rate is 1 QSO
every 2 minutes (about 10 CQ attempts), it doesn't matter if the ONE
station I can copy in that interval is a European or a North American.
The European who got the propagation lift did not prevent any North
American station from being worked -- the European was the ONLY station
I could copy during those 15 seconds it took to make the QSO. Once he
was in the log, I was back to listening to the buzz down in the noise,
waiting for the ionosphere to bubble up another call from somewhere. If
you listen to the recordings, you won't find many instances where we had
TWO stations calling and copyable simultaneously.
Again, all these comments are about operating under the conditions we
experienced during the 2000-0230z period after the first few days of
operations. Under different conditions (such as those strong signal,
spotlight, ducted openings of three years ago), a different operating
technique would be appropriate.
73,
-- Eric K3NA
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