TopBand: Not hearing, one way propagation.

[K3BU@aol.com]

While trying to improve my last year's performance from Nova Scotia, this
time with "easy" call as VX3BMV/1 (Jack, VE1ZZ got scared by avalanche of QSL
cards for CG1ZZ operation), I was also told that I could not hear many
stations (see K1ZM comments earlier.) I put up two more Beverages for US (W,
NW) to have decent coverage in addition to existing S, SW and W (long).
Well, first night power line noise seems to find me wherever I go. It was 20
over 9 from ENE through SW. Concentrated on working US in the beginning.
Heavy use of DSP and NB on TS870 (worked better than IC781/NB for digging out
weak signals, if there was no strong signal within abt 6 kHz) helped a bit.
God listened to my prayers (hitting the poles with sledge hammer didn't help)
and sent rain Saturday night. Frying noise of AC was replaced with lightning
strikes "music", which believe it or not, was a welcome change. You could
hear something in between the crashes and if station persisted, it was
possible to complete many calls.
So sometimes reasons for not hearing could be very frustrating and out of our
control. I was ready to quit in disgust, but remembered 15-hour drive from NJ
to NS, I figured I need a "rest" from driving and statyed in. I am glad I did
(true contester never quits!) Managed to better my last year's score under
the same (lousy) if not worst conditions. I will prepare article about VE1ZZ,
his $20 antenna farm and my experiences as soon as I recover and catch up on
backlogs.

One extra frustrating experience keeps popping up on low bands. I.e. at VE1ZZ
QTH I can start hearing EU and Af signals around 3 pm local time, I can start
working them ususally around 7 pm.  Now that is up to 4 hours of calling on
4-square and kW. Quite often they reach S9 strength (above noise floor) and
keep calling CQ with no takers. (OL5Q, OT7T, IK2PEP, SV8CS, YU1EA, etc.) I
heard at least 10 more countries, that I never worked!
Question is: Is this the "Ocean" phenomenon between East Coast and Europe/Af?
Do the West Coast stations experience the same thing with East Coast signals?
Would appreciate reports and will summarize them for the reflector.

BTW on low dipole/Inv.Vee: 
At K3BU in NJ I have full size 160 m inverted Vee 30' "high" in the tree. RX
antenna is the "Dog Loop" (1 inch underground, 800 ft long square loop of
wire around the property, originally to be Radio Fence for our dog) with
600:50 Ohm transformer and pre-amp. The other morning I could not sleep,
called CQ and VK6HD came back! Also worked K7K and ZK1XXP using this setup
plus Dentron Clipperton L. Neat, "invisible" setup, except RF makes my fax
machine come on trying to take the message when I make a call.

Thanks again to all those who had mercy and patience to persist while I was
trying to get the complete call!

73 and CU on CW with hopefully better condx and no noise!

Yuri, VX3BMV/1, K3BU, op of CG1ZZ


--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/topband.html
Submissions:              topband@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  topband-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-topband@contesting.com