[RTTY] re: the Black Hole

[Jim McDonald]

"Is this Heaven?  No, it's Iowa."

So the line from the movie, "Field of Dreams," is not really true?

I wasn't active in RTTY when I lived in Mason City as a teen in the late 60s, but I did work 185 countries on CW and SSB in a pretty short period without an amplifier.  In retrospect, the sunspot peak and 10M may have had something to do with it.

Jim N7US
ex-WA0OTE

-------Original Message-------
From: Nelson Moyer <ku0a at mchsi.com>
Sent: 05/28/03 08:18 AM
To: 'Tom Moore' <wx4tm at tm-moore.com>, 'RTTY' <RTTY at contesting.com>
Subject: RE: [RTTY] re: the Black Hole

> 
> Having spent the past 21 years in Iowa, I can identify with your
sentiments about the 'black hole'. It's particularly discouraging on 6
meters at this high latitude inland RF wasteland. Zeros are the Rodney
Dangerfields of ham radio. DX stations running call areas get to nine
and go back to 1! Either that or propagation falls out while they're
working the 6s and 7s. But--- I've worked 222 on RTTY in the past two
years, having just started that mode after working out most of the other
bands/modes I can hear from Iowa. I'm using a TH-11 at 50 feet and a
max. of 600 watts when necessary. I've worked Asians on RTTY that took
many years to work on other modes, e.g. XW, XU, HS, VU, S2, JT, etc.
Probably the fact that there's less competition on RTTY explains the
relative ease of logging these exotic locations. The real problem with
the zero call area is on 40 and 80 meters (I don't operate on 160).
Unless you have lots of space for beverages, four squares, etc. you're
extremely limited on the low bands, and there's always the East Coast
Curtain to contend with. It's tough to see the cluster spots from the
East Coast where zones 17, 18, 21, and 22 are coming in at S9 and I
can't hear them. Maybe someday....

Nelson, KU0A

-----Original Message-----
From: rtty-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:rtty-bounces at contesting.com]
On Behalf Of Tom Moore
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 5:44 AM
To: RTTY
Subject: [RTTY] re: the Black Hole

Lived there for a while.. 6 yrs in Iowa back in the 80's.. put up a 50ft

tower and tribander.. never heard much.. seldom heard anything at 
all!!.. it just sat there most of the time..

Whoever, at the FCC, assigned the 'ZERO' to that part of the country 
knew exactly what he was doing..  No wonder we have so many DXpeditions 
going there.. It really is a foreign country!!

There's been many theories suggesting why its so bad..
Mine is that the natural ground is messed up by all the chemicals used 
by the commerical farmers and the resulting negative excrements from the

cow and pig farms.. hi hi.. (whatever you do, don't ride a motorcycle 
down a back road in Iowa)..

like I said.. lived there for 6 yrs.. finally wised up and got at first 
opportunity!! Hi..

Tom WX4TM






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