Topband: The eleventh commandment of 160m DXing?

[Steve Ireland]

In early August some reflectees may remember a posting about P43 being heard
at VK6VZ on 8/8.  Hearing Zone 9 at any time of year in Western Australia is
very very rare and no QSOs had ever been made into this zone on 160m then.

As a result of that posting I made contact with Jacob P43P and skeds were
set up with myself and Mike VK6HD at Jacob's sunset.  Jacob's signals were
heard again on 9/8 at RST559, 10/8 at RST439 and then on 11/8 at an amazing
RST579.

During the opening on 11/8 Mike VK6HD made the first ever contact from VK6
with Zone 9, working P43P.  It was terific to hear him do it - and gave me
some hope I might be able to repeat the feat.

During this opening, Jacob's signal was being heard throughout the Pacific
area and after Mike had made the initial contact I found myself competing
with a few other stations in the area for the next QSO that night.  These
stations were closer to P43 than me and from parts of the Pacific where Zone
9 is relatively easy to work, but as far as I was concerned 'that's life'
and  so I happily competed with them in the pile-up until the P43's signal
disappeared.

Imagine my frustration when I heard via the 160m grapevine some days later
that two of the stations calling apparently didn't need the P43, let alone
Zone 9.  Also, although I have heard Jacob a couple of times weakly since
then, there has been nothing of the same signal strength/duration of the
first few openings - and it looks like this particular window may have
closed for the moment.

Now we pride ourselves on working on 'the gentleman's band'.  I would like
to see an eleventh 160m commandment added to the ten that Jeff K1ZM came up
in his book. This would read something like:

"If it is rare DX, you don't need it and there is someone else calling from
farther away, don't call it until the pile-up has gone."

I hope the grapevine was wrong and those blokes really needed P43/Zone 9.

Vy 73,

Steve, VK6VZ


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