[CQ-Contest] RE: [CQ-Contest} Predicting Unusual Openings

[George Fremin III - K5TR]

In response to N4ZR - K3NA wrote:

> work stations in "X" about "T" hours later on that band?  Did I ever
> work stations in "X" without working stations in "Y" about "T" hours
> earlier?  If the answer to the last two questions is reasonably
> consistent (usually work Y and then X... rarely work X without
> working Y), then you've found an indicator for the path in question.

And alot of other stuff that made my head hurt.

Over the years I have operated with many good operators and 
one thing I noticed is that as a result of many hours of 
operating they have built up a huge set of experiances.  This
"knowledge base" is added to and updated with each contest
and other on air experiance.  I dont see them keeping notes except
maybe mental ones.  Keeping notes on paper would not be useful in
the heat of the battle since you need to decide what to do NOW not
after consulting your notes or a propagation prediction program.

They operate using their knowledge base as a guide.  As they 
gain more experiance this knowledge becomes second nature - knowing 
when to turn the beam long path or to look on some scatter path
becomes more a reaction and less a thought process.  

As far as I can tell this only comes with experiance - not to 
say that this knowledge can not be shared but it is hard to do.

I could ( and would be more than happy to) tell you about some
of the non-standard propagation paths that I have filed away 
in my memory but this would not be a quick or compleate process 
since much of it is second nature to me now -  so I have to think 
about it alot more to tell someone that I do to just use 
it when I am on the radio.

--

George Fremin III                 
Johnson City, Texas             "Experiment trumps theory." 
K5TR (ex.WB5VZL)                            -- Dave Leeson W6NL
geoiii at kkn.net                             
830-868-2510                      
http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr                   


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