[CQ-Contest] Question for European Contesters

[Pete Smith]

I'm doing some analysis of propagation and antenna selection as it affects
the ability of a US East Coast station like mine to run European stations.
One of the recurrent questions that comes up in this process is what sort
of antenna and perhaps other parameters one should assume, not for serious
European contesters with purpose-built contesting stations, but the average
person who might get on for a few tens of QSOs on a Saturday or Sunday
afternoon.

Going back through my logs suggests that transmitter power for such
stations probably averages 100 watts, with a nod in the direction of QRPers
by assuming some fraction would be 10-13 dB down from that level.  But what
about antennas?  Would a ground plane or a low dipole be pretty close to
average?  And finally, is the average such station in a difficult noise
environment?  VOACAP assumes a default value of -145 dbW for manmade noise,
which roughly equates to a suburban residential setting.

Comments or contraduictory advice are very welcome.  Please feel free to
reply directly rather than on the reflector, and I'll summarize results of
general interest for the reflector audience. 

73, Pete Smith N4ZR

Contesting is ... Extreme Radio

The World Contest Station Database 
is back up and running at
http://www.qsl.net/n4zr 



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