[CQ-Contest] Re: Power Level?

[Pete Smith]

At 02:55 PM 8/8/98 EDT, AD6E at aol.com wrote:
...
> Can you really notice (or will your RX
>"capture") a signal that is 1.7 dB stronger than another?  Certainly in the
>realm of high tech digital communications thats significant and measurable.
>In FM communications, thats barely enough to "capure".  But in the ear?  Give
>me a break.

I don't think I buy Paul's argument about AGC differentiating between two
signals 1.7 dB apart, but I *am* convinced that averaged over the course of
a contest, 1.7 dB makes a significant difference, just as surely as you
can't argue in any single QSO, that 1.7 dB more power made THE difference.
But over 24 or 48 hours, X stations just above the noise floor that
wouldn't have been workable otherwise, Y minutes saved by getting out of
pileups just marginally quicker on the average, etc.  Makes a bigger
difference in some contests than in others, but it's always there ... 


73, Pete Smith N4ZR
n4zr at contesting.com 

"That's WEST Virginia.  Thanks and 73"


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