[CQ-Contest] Station Inspections

[Dave - AB7E]

I agree 100%.  Why else would people spend extra money on expensive feedlines, or better bandpass filters, or ... well, you name it.  (I'll concede that bigger antennas generally have a better pattern that helps on receive as well.)

A couple of years ago I mixed computer generated CW with band noise I recorded from 80m (using a 400 Hz filter) to generate a few audio files with different signal/noise ratios.  I kept the noise energy the same and varied the CW audio in one decibel increments.  Three db literally made the difference between less than 50% copy and perfect Q5 copy.  Even the difference between +1 db and +2 db (compared to my baseline file) was noticeable.

73,
Dave  AB7E




------Original Mail------
From: "Steve Sacco NN4X" <nn4x at embarqmail.com>
To: "cq contest" <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:31:40 -0400
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Station Inspections


Thirdly, the "it's only 3dB" argument is well-taken if you're comparing 
S9+20dB signals, but spend time digging signals out of the noise, when 
you would KILL for them to be JUST A LITTLE louder, and suddenly 3dB 
(1/2 an S-unit) is enormous.  That's not "opinion", it's fact.

73/DX
Steve