[CQ-Contest] A Newcomers Question

[Paul Young]

Hi Dave,

I can give you a few examples of how this happens:

1.  You are on 20 meters in the morning calling Europeans.  In
     Europe it is afternoon and the skip is short.  The European
     stations are hearing each other really well and they can't
     copy you through their neighbors' splatter.

2.  You are on 160 calling a Caribbean station.  The station is
     in the tropics and has a very high static level.  He hears
     crashes and hiss and wishes he had a receiving antenna.

3.  You are on 40 meters calling a station who is operating
     split.  Unfortunately a foreign broadcast station starts
     transmitting music on his listening frequency and it is
     S9+60 dB.

4.  Your antenna is not pointed where you think it is.

Hmmm, that pretty much describes last weekend.

For the CW contest I'll be 6V7D and I will probably be QRP.  So
if you hear me I should be able to hear you.

                         Paul, K1XM



> Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:15:50 -0600
> From: "Dave Sloan" <desloan at earthlink.net>
> Subject: [CQ-Contest] A Newcomers Question
> To: <cq-contest at contesting.com>
> Message-ID: <08f301c81b20$e6f97270$99dc5742 at Dave>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
> 
> 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