[CQ-Contest] 40M WAE - How loud are you?

[Ed Sawyer]

I am here in Brittany France and have a small set up next to the sea for a
couple of weeks.  It is an inverted vee only about 30 ft up in a tree but
its less than 100 yards to the ocean with a clear shot to W/VE.  I decided
to listen in on 40M SSB from 04 - 06Z and see how the USA and VE boys were
coming through.  Note - I only have a key with me so no QSOs were made.

 

The following is the PEAK signal heard during the time period.  I swept the
band from 7230 - 7125 many times in the 2 hours.  If you were CQing during
that time and are a W/VE and are not on my list, you are not effective in
Europe on 40M during this prime time.  Note that I did not sweep 7125 - 7050
so I did not hear many VEs.

 

One thing that I noticed is that much of the Ws that I heard had a lot of
QSB over the period.  Sometimes well over S9 - sometimes S7.  The W1s were
the most consistent.  But even they had QSB.  One exception of consistency
outside of W1 was KD4D who was virtually the loudest station other than
KC1XX and had less QSB than any other non-W1 station.  Very FB!

 

KC1XX       +20 - 30dB

KD4D        +20 - 30dB

K1DG        +15 - 20dB

KE3X         +15dB (a lot of QSB sometimes S7)

N1BA        +10 - 15dB

K3RA         +10 - 15dB (a Lot of QSB sometimes S8)

W1WMU  +10 - 15dB

WX3B         +5 - 10dB

K5ZD          +5 - 10dB

W9RE         +5dB

K3CR          +5dB  (QSB to S7)

NR3X          +5dB  (QSB to S7)

W1UE         S9

NA8V          S9

KA8G          S9

VA2EW       S9

K5WA         S8

 

Note that I had no preamp on and had a S0 - S1 noise floor with these
signals.  They were VERY easy copy.  WAE is not too crowded vs some of the
other contests.

 

Feel free to ask me about your signal off list.

 

73

 

Ed  F/N1UR