[CQ-Contest] Those dBs in a pileup

[Steve Sacco NN4X]

Dave -

I *seem* to recall that, a long time ago, someone smart like K3ZO or 
W3LPL or someone did an analysis of what the effect would be if you were 
1 dB stronger than everyone else in a pile-up.  IIRC, that 1 dB would 
make make you something like 3X more likely to be heard, or something 
very impressive like that.

I've been searching around for that piece, but haven't located it.

Does anyone else remember this, or am I making it up?  If it really 
exists, I'd love to read it again.

73,
Steve
NN4X
EL98jh


Dave - AB7E wrote:
> 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
>
>