Topband: cq-160

[Lee K7TJR]

What a fun learning experience to enter the contesting world of 160 during
the sunspot peak. This was only my second 160 contest and I learned a lot.
It seems that I have either a lot of corona or a leaky insulator near my
antenna farm as it snowed and rained here in Oregon over the 2 nights. The
noise would come up from nothing to S4 at 250 hz filtering on the Omni-6
plus. So i apologize now for not hearing all those people that called when
the noise was high.  The quick E-W Beverage 310 ft put up just before the
contest was a real bright spot as it helped with the East coast and even the
ZF2. Noise was S9 on the inverted vee at 125 ft. We (K7zum and myself)
nearly forgot to stop using the beverage until a very loud JA came on , we
switched it off and worked lots more JA's and others we had not heard off
the back. It's remarkable how you put in the back of your mind how you hear
so much about receiving being the name of the game on top-band. It's really
hard to put into perspective how that's true untill you live it. I dont
think we had any trouble being heard by any stations far away as we did
hardly any fills , however we could have used even better receiving antennas
for this contest (and no power line noise) , so for now the Beverage rules
over the small loop and the K9ay loop until later. What a delightful
experience to use a Beverage antenna that works well. I better get back to
work I've got noise to chase and antennas to build.. Thanks all,  Lee K7tjr