[CQ-Contest] A Newcomers Question

[David Pruett]

Dave Sloan wrote:
> Why is it during contests that I can hear a station at say 20db over S9 and
> that they never hear me. I had thought that it was my poor antenna
> installation. But, yesterday I was talking with a friend that has a tower
> and beam and he says they same thing happens to him. If this were just a one
> time occurrence I would chalk it up to the other station just not having any
> ears. But this happens numerous times during every contest that I have
> worked. I can hear the other station working all sorts of other stations. I
> have tuned in of the frequency of the station they are working and then
> called them on that frequency. I've called maybe 25 or 30 times over a 5 to
> 10 minute timeframe. I have heard the same station at different times during
> the contest and on different bands and yet every time I try to work them
> they don't hear me. Can someone please explain what I am doing wrong.
>
> TNX & 73,
> Dave N0EOP
>
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>   
Some of it may be power.  In general, most antennas are reciprocal - 
i.e., when your antenna is receiving a station well, you will probably 
transmit to him well also.  But it you're running 100W and he's running 
1500W, if everything else is equal (and admittedly it seldom is) you're 
probably hearing him 12 dB better than he'll hear you.  Then there is 
the question of QRM - he may be hearing a lot more of it from areas 
where you're don't have propagation at the moment.

So if you're hearing a station loud, that's good.  But if you try to 
imagine what things sound like at his end, I think you'll find the 
answer to your question.

Dave/K8CC