East Coast

[D.RODMAN]

I can't stand it either.  Gentlemen, for completeness sake, lets start
throwing in those tangible intangibles.  Like, your local geographic
location.  Few of us have had the pleasure of operating HF from a mountain
QTH or near the water: TALK ABOUT ADVANTAGES!  It is extremely hard for me
to figure out how anyone can generalize so much about East Coast vs the
rest of the contest world without considering the real life advantage of
having those sticks on a hill or a hill over water (W6QHS).  These factors
more than compensate for East Coast at times in my opinion.  Living near
the coast, which is exactly what East Coast should mean can be worth
10dB over us land lubbers.  The farther south you go, in general means
your propagation becomes less dependent on the local geomagnetic field.
Your conditions are likely to be far less variable than us up here
in the great white north.  That is an undisputable fact.  You may have
a longer path, which can be more difficult at times, but in general
you have more reliable communications. (When I operated in J6, I was 
amazed how things came in when you least expected it: like JA at 
1000 AM local time on 20 meters in February LOUDLY).  If I had to pick
my QTH without any hesitation, I would be somewhere in the East, near
the Atlantic an on a small hill.  The ground would not be rocky, and
I would need at least 500 ft above local terrain.  You would then have
an outstanding station location for the EU stations on the low bands,
JA on the upper freqs and LP into the SW.  

Oh, by the way, I have found out how painfully harsh these hilly locations
can be near water.  The winds can be extremely harsh, and normal antennas
do not reliably hold up without pre-planning reinforcement.  Bye.

73, Happy New Year
Dave KN2M