GA All
Teardown has been achieved and we will have a group dinner to celebrate tonight
at 7:30PM
First - thanks to everyone for looking out for us and trying to work us on
Topband. We had a great time trying to hear and work you and I hope you had
fun chasing us.
I know we did not work all who wanted a qso on Topband - but we were there at
every opening and even made a few extra qso's in the ARRL DX CW contest today -
quite a few of these were into NA on 160m..
This exercise was instructive to us in a number of ways:
1) V85 and this part of the world is damned difficult to work into from NA
districts W1 and W2. For example, here are some numbers:
W1 - 8 qso's in all - All via the LP around our SR -
W2 - NONE (At least none that I can recall...)
W3 - 2 qso's - one via LP and one via SP as I recall
W4 - Quite a few - this part of NA is workable more easily - All qso's via SP
W5 - Good propagation via the SP - reliable every night
W6/W7 - These districts have what I call the "front door" to this part of the
world on Topband
W8 - One as I recall - but maybe there were 1-2 more
W9 - Only a handful via SP
W0 - Around 10-15 qso's (if that) - all via SP
Some observations:
1) Antennas work well when placed near salt water! You all commented that we
had a great XMIT signal.
2) Short path propagation is best right at our SS - and drops off rapidly after
about 25-30 mins
3) Long path peaks start about 30 mins before our local SR and fade rapidly as
we go into daylight
4) 80m is far easier into NA than 160m is - for sure.
5) We know we were out transmitting our ability to hear via the LP into NA at
our SR (This may have been a case of shooting ourselves in the foot! ) We
heard W1NA and N1DG very well early in the week at 2200z or so - but it was
almost a total bust into W1 after that. Some changes were made in the
splitting of our RX antennas the next day - and for the life of me - I am
beginning to think we lost something in that process. I usually do not like
making changes to an environment that works - and I think we hurt ourselves by
trying to do too much - when simpler had proven itself to be working relatively
well. Sorry for that - especially to VO1HP who was heard and should have been
in our 160m log. Frank heard us almost every day on the LP - & I heard him the
day we worked N1DG - but never thereafter - which is a real downer... We never
completed a qso that was relatively easy to achieve IMHO. LP into VO1 is quite
good from this part of the world - especially if attempted on a clear frequency.
Statistics
(Note that the FINAL CLUBLOG numbers are not yet posted as I write this!)
And the 160m numbers shown there include some OTHER BAND QSO's that happened to
be made at the 160m equipment during the daytime.
It looks like 3,677 Total 160m QSo's were made on 160m CW - I do not know the
FT8 total but it was contributory as well. FT8 was worked mainly out of the
SSB camp and one night with us in the CW camp. Most qso's were in Asia and
Europe. NA was harder to crack - even on FT8.
More than 400 CW qso's were made into NA on Topband (with the addition of the
ARRL CW Dx Test numbers).
Europe dominated our numbers - followed by JAPAN/ASIA.
Note that it was hard to work into VK - and I do not remember working a ZL.
Finally, I am aware that there are some band logging errors and surely there
will be some busted calls in our log due to the ESP-like signal levels that we
were dealing with much of the time.
Please be patient as these are sorted out and pls do this via our QSL manager.
And please do not ask me about other bands - I did not ever leave the 160m
chair and never even visited the SSB camp - I do not even know where it was or
how to get there - my singular focus was 160m for the past 10 days and K1LZ
was the MAN on 80 CW 99% of the time. We sat next to each other and I thought
we each helped each other as things progressed.
BUT
I do have a personal copy of the 160m logs - just in case there are issues
where the QSL manager asks me for an opinion regarding a specific qso.
73 to all and thanks for helping us make this a successful lowband-focused
dx'pedition.
We had fun - the pleasure was all ours! Thanks for being a part of it!
JEFF K1ZM/VY2ZM
Jeff BriggsDXing on the Edge: The Thrill of 160 Meters Available worldwide
through BookBaby, Array Solutions, DX Engineering, Radio Society of Great
Britain, & Amazon
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