[CQ-Contest] Ionospheric heating

[Tree N6TR]

It seems that the idea of the bands being conditioned by the RF
activity during a major contest is being proposed.  The observation
that conditions seem to deteriorate after the contest has also
been made.

I don't know a whole lot about the ionospere - except that I have
had a lot of fun with it.  However, I do have some common sense
observations which I think can apply.  It seems that practical
experience is valued by some in this arguement, so I thought I
would share mine.

First off - having been the part of many contest operations, after
the contest is done - you turn off the amplifiers, find a beer and
hang out on 3830 to see how you did.  This human response would result
in a significant reduction of activity by "big stations" on the bands.

Even if someone doesn't follow this pattern - they are probably pretty
tired and they need to get off the radio and go to sleep.

It is probably true that the "average" station in the contest is
probably 10 - 20 db louder than the average station on the band
after the contest.  So, I would expect my S-meter to move a lot
less after the contest and the guys with dipoles and 50 watts
are able to find a clear frequency.

As far as determining if Amateurs can generate sufficient noise to
effect the propagation medium - I think it is pretty obvious to
anyone listening to the HF international broadcast bands that they
have a very significant presence in the equation.  Even looking at
the energy between 7.1 and 7.3 megaHertz makes a pretty convincing
case that the Amateurs are just a drop in the bucket.

Finally, for those who think the ionosphere might be non-linear -
I think they need to think about what would happen as a result.
As W8JI mentioned, there would be a big mess created by the
mixing effect.  The IMD performance of the ionoshere would be
pretty poor.  Also, remember that a SSB signal is very dynamic
and any non linerity would result in distortion of the signal.
Indeed - if it was sufficient to make a 50 watt signal disappear,
I would argue that it would nearly be unintelligable.

Finally, all of the energy from the international broadcast
stations would be the main contributor to any effects and it
would be hard to believe that a specific amateur signal would
be sufficient to trigger any difference in the medium.

73 N6TR SS


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>From Igor Sokolov" <ua9cdc at dialup.mplik.ru  Thu Apr  5 22:47:31 2001
From: Igor Sokolov" <ua9cdc at dialup.mplik.ru (Igor Sokolov)
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 03:47:31 +0600
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Help - determine distance between to points
References: <b2.1397c419.27fc8ce5 at aol.com>
Message-ID: <009f01c0be1a$07ca4ee0$d84b17d4 at dialup.mplik.ru>


Try here...

http://hjem.sol.no/la0fx/loc.zip

Better yet go to VE6YP site (the author of YP log) and download the program
called AZIMUTH http://www.nucleus.com/~field

It is absolutely superb (IMHO)

73,
Igor, UA9CDC


----- Original Message -----
From: <K7bv at aol.com>
To: <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 8:42 PM
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Help - determine distance between to points


 >
 > Contesting Computer Whizzos,
 >
 > Can your point me to some software or a website that will allow me to pick
 > two long/lat points on the globe and determine the distance between them
in
 > miles or km?
 >
 > Tks,
 > Forever computer challenged
 > Dennis K7BV
 >
 >
 > --
 > CQ-Contest on WWW:        http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
 > Administrative requests:  cq-contest-REQUEST at contesting.com
 >
 >


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