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[Ron DeBry]

A few comments about the recent exchange between Dave and Eric about the
relative performance of N2RM vs. W3LPL on 15 meters:

I agree with Dave's rankings, that operator is more important than
hardware given roughly equal hardware, but I think that hardware
takes on relatively more importance on phone, while on CW operator
skills are _much_ more important than hardware.  What I suspect is going
on is that the antenna hardware is not nearly as equal as LPL hopes it
is.  

Based both on the recent series of articles in NCJ on stacks, and on the
personal experience of competing head to head with K4XS (5 x 5 x 5 x 5)
from N4WW (6 x 6), I would bet that N2RM is consistently louder in Europe
than W3LPL (as one european has already mentioned).

Given the choice, I would take 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 rather than 5 x 5 or even
6 x 6.

On phone, I almost always get drubbed by Bill on 10 and 15 (and 20 is
hopeless, N4WW's 2 204BAs against K4XS's 5 x 5 x 5 x 5).  On CW we
always go multi-single, and our secret weapon is Red, K0LUZ, the CW rate
machine. 

Ron, WA6DGX
debry at ds1.scri.fsu.edu