[CQ-Contest] CQ WW DX SSB Midwest vs East Coast

[ktfrog007 at aol.com]

Hi Ray,


I'm by no means a propagation expert, as has been frequently pointed out by others when I post, but:

Location makes a big difference.     Libertyville, IL   42N   88W       Richmond, VA   38N  77W

You might want to set your locations and, say, central Germany, into VOACAP and see what it says under the propagation conditions at the time of your activity.  Set antenna parameters, too. The propagation wheel is particularly fun to look at.

You can also use HamCAP with IonoProbe (both by VE3NEA) for simpler but more convenient comparisons.

There are various other propagation aids out there.  An interesting one is an MUF map by KC2G at https://prop.kc2g.com

Look at the great circle paths on an azimuthal map.  Paths that go farther north toward the pole are usually worse.  Paths over the equator are better.

Skip distance matters and the number of hops. Sometimes your best skip distances (including multi-hop) may just not put you in the proper place.  Some say this is a problem with the Midwest Black Hole generally.  You end up out in the ocean somewhere.

You and your friend can go on CW at the same time and look at the Reverse Beacon Network to see how your signals compare at different distances and directions.  Just call CQ and wait a minute.

In addition, you are facing the whole East Coast wall, including those south of Richmond, plus the eastern Canadians (VE3 to the  Maritimes), while your friend is facing mostly the Northeast USA Wall.


I suppose a myriad of other factors enter in.  Antennas, terrain, operators, spotter locations, spot quality and filtering, local noise floor.

Someone will correct my mistakes here, so pay attention to any follow up posts.

This sounds like fun to research.  Good luck.  

73,
Ken, AB1J


-----Original Message-----
From: Ray Mikula <rmikula at sbcglobal.net>
To: cq-contest at contesting.com <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Sun, Nov 7, 2021 6:57 pm
Subject: [CQ-Contest] CQ WW DX SSB Midwest vs East Coast

I have an informal Competition with a ham who lives on the East Coast (Richmond, VA).  I live in the Midwest (Chicago Northern Suburbs).  In last weeks CQ WW DX SSB contest, he outdid me with many more multipliers.  He had 63 more multipliers on 15M and 92 more multipliers on 10M.  What is interesting and frustrating is that we were both doing S&P (no running at all).  I was operating assisted using the cluster spotting in N1MM and I was very heavily focused on multipliers.  He, on the other hand was listening up and down the bands, snagging contacts.

So, what I’m trying to figure out is how he ended up with so many more multipliers.  Is this the difference between East coast and the Midwest propagation?  Or is it my approach?  Could it be that I missed so many multipliers because they never showed up as spots?  I would have thought that almost everyone that was running would likely get spotted but perhaps that was a really bad assumption.

Overall, we are both little pistols.  His station my have a slight edge as his beam is at 40 feet vs my 35 feet but that is about it.

So, two questions.  

If one is running assisted what balance of clicking multiplier spots vs. tuning up and down the dial tends to be most productive in snagging multipliers?

Second, how much of a difference is there between working a world wide contest from the Midwest vs. the East coast?

Any insights would be appreciated.

73,
Ray Mikula  (W9NZ)

Sent from Mail for Windows

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