[CQ-Contest] 1966 vs 2006 [was: Why did the Canadians (PT5M) beat the Americans...]

[Pete Smith]

The W3AFM series was interesting in its time, but pretty rudimentary by today's standard.  One of the commonplace things in those days was to equate DXing with contesting.  This notion of "layers" of stations is insupportable, when you think about it - no way 1000 or 2000 QSOs in a contest could be sorted into discrete layers by signal strength.  I think it is inarguable, though, that any increase in either the strength of your signal or your ability to hear other stations will increase the number of stations you work in a contest period.  How large an increase before it makes 1 QSO's difference?  I have no idea.

73, Pete N4ZR

  At 09:04 AM 8/21/2006, Radiosporting Fan wrote:
>--- Steve London <n2icarrl at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The original source for the "2 dB improvement" quote
>> probably comes from QST, September 1966, "Station 
>> Design for DX" by W3AFM:
>> 
>> "Incidentally, in progressive antenna changes at
>> W3AFM, increments of only 2 dB in antenna gain have
>> opened up, in each case, a new layer of 
>> workable central-Asian DX."
>
>Hi Steve,
>Thanks for digging up this information.  I was
>wondering about the source for this information
>myself.
>
>Given the state-of-the-art in 1966 this sounds
>reasonable.  Given the state-of-the-art in 2006 (and
>the ability of modern transceivers to dig out weaker
>signals), I would wonder if the number is closer to
>5-dB or more before "another layer" is revealed due
>simply to technical issues and not operator skill.
>
>Anyway...I'm just pondering and not making any
>statement of fact.
>
>Regards,
>Ev, W2EV
>
>
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