[CQ-Contest] ZW5B (op K5ZD) CQWW CW 28 MHz Story (longer than long)

[David Mueller]

This stuff is a REAL problem out here.  The entire CW portion of 10m
is constantly filled with garbage from southeast asia, its just
something I've had to learn to deal with operating from KH2.
   On another note, 40m is worse.  Most of the CW portion of the band
is filled with Indonesian SSBers (logging operations I've been told).
Anyway it makes things VERY difficult when trying to pull out a
callsign.  When you hear a loud KH2, or T88, ETC, on 40m CW and he's
having trouble with your call, before calling him an idiot think about
the 20 over S9 ssb QRM we have to deal with on a nightly basis.
   2 tips: 
For USA M/M ops.....DONT CQ in the bottom 3 KHz or so of
the band (40m) when trying to work asia.  Thats the worst place I've
found for the SSB QRM (guys working USB on 7000KHz).  7005-7007 seems
to be the best places in my limited experience for you to be.

For those thinking of operating from this part of the world.  Consider
a short beverage antenna for 40m.  I have a short (250ft) long
beverage pointed due north which works GREAT for me on 40m.  It nulls
out the SSB garbage to my south and I can copy JA/USA/ EU great with
it.  I used this beverage on RX exclusively my entire time on 40m in
the CQWWCW which helped me work nearly 600 NA/EU through the crap.

Hope this info helps,
73, Dave KH2/N2NL
n2nl at netpci.com

----------
>
> I hope Fred, K3ZO, doesn't mind me forwarding this to the reflector.  It
> provides some insight into why South America is such a great place for 10m
> propagation.
>
> It also reminded me of something else I wanted to mention in the write-up.
> All night, when the band was really open to zone 24 and 26, I felt like I
> was operating a CW contest in the middle of the phone bands!  SSB, AM, and
> FM signals were everywhere.
>
> Didn't really cost me any QSOs, but there were a few times I had to move my
> run frequency a kHz or so to get away from a heterodyne.  I suspect we are
> going to discover new levels of encroachment this sunspot cycle - even
> greater than we could have imagined.
>
> Randy, K5ZD
>
>
> - -----Original Message-----
> From: Fred Laun K3ZO [mailto:aalaun at ibm.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 1998 4:03 AM
> To: k5zd at ma.ultranet.com
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] ZW5B (op K5ZD) CQWW CW 28 Mhz Story (longer
> than long)
>
>
> Hi Randy:
>
> Thanks for a fascinating story!
>
> The reason that the band stays open all night down there (besides the fact
> that it's summer down there so the sun is shining on the ionosphere above
> you all day a lot longer than it is here, giving it more reflectivity once
> it gets dark) is that the Geomagnetic Equator runs roughly through Lima,
> Peru whereas the Geographic Equator runs through Quito, Ecuador.  And for
> propagation purposes the Geomagnetic Equator is the important one.
>
> There is also something else going on.  When I was in Cordoba, Argentina as
> LU5HFI I had to coordinate the visit of a US Navy Earth magnetic field
> mapping plane which was spending some time in Cordoba calibrating the
> plane's measuring instruments with a local geomagnetic observatory there
> before going on to the Antarctic to make measurements.  The scientific crew
> told me that for reasons that up to that point were unexplained, the
> atmosphere over Argentina (and presumably over Southern Brasil as well) is
> about 10,000 feet thicker than over any other point on the globe.  I always
> felt that's why the LUs seem to "own" 10 meters.  I am also aware that
> during the LUs' Sporadic E season in December/January they routinely have 2
> meter short skip openings around Argentina whereas such openings are pretty
> rare up here.
>
> Glad to hear Zone 26 was so loud down there.  We are working hard to get
> more volume there so the next time you have an hour with nothing but Zone 26
> your rate will be better HI
>
> By the way try a phone contest there some time and check in on 29.6 FM to
> run the 10,000 Chinese novice (BG prefix) stations all crsytal controlled
> there with their 3-watt NBFM kits which their national club sent all over
> the country a few years back to jump start HF activity!  I have had
> interesting runs from HS on that frequency -- what a madhouse!  Just
> filtering out the hams from the Hong Kong taxicabs using the same frequency
> for business is plenty of work by itself.
>
> 73, Fred
>
> --
> CQ-Contest on WWW:        http://www.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
> Administrative requests:  cq-contest-REQUEST at contesting.com
>


--
CQ-Contest on WWW:        http://www.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
Administrative requests:  cq-contest-REQUEST at contesting.com