Topband: 3B9C tonight

[Eric Scace K3NA]

Hi Chet --

   That was me at the key the night W4TEA made his QSO.  We have had a series of USA openings with either heavy QRN or just very
marginal, weak propagation of signals back from North America to us.  Finally we got one session with quite low static crashes and
realized that our ambient noise level has some man-made QRN in it.  Unfortunately there isn't much we can do about the man-made QRN
at this point, so that is the 3B9C noise floor.

   At least when I was operating, folks calling more than plus/minus 750 Hz from the announced listening frequency were wasting
their time.  I usually could hear someone workable quite close to the announced frequency -- or, there just wasn't anyone audible at
all.  I'm a bit surprised and discouraged that the pileup was spread over 6 kHz.  The 3B9C operating philosophy has been to minimize
band occupancy and keep the pileups narrow.  I would have hoped that people would note a pattern of stations worked, and concluded
that the successful QSOs were in a narrow range of frequencies.  Apologies for gobbling up so much of the limited spectrum on 160m.

-- Eric K3NA

(BTW Chet, did you happen to be a Navy radio op in the 1970s?)

Re: Topband: 3B9C tonight
from [Chet Moore]

To:  "Gary Nichols" <kd9sv at comcast.net>, <w4zv at contesting.com>,<topband at contesting.com>
Subject:  Re: Topband: 3B9C tonight
From:  "Chet Moore" <ChetMoore at cox.net>
Date:  Thu, 1 Apr 2004 10:17:48 -0800
List-post:  <mailto:topband at contesting.com>

Hi Bill & Gary,

KD9SV reported not too many calling the 3b9 last night.  That may very well
have been how it sounded to Gary last night,  but not the way I heard it
from Eastern Virginia.

Gary is correct that the 3B9 did frequently call CQ even though there were
in my opinion 3 to 400 stations calling (where were all these guys during
the cq and arrl contests) . and they were widely spread from 1.824 to 1.830
and even though the 3B9 was saying up 5 while xmitting on 1.822.  maybe
there was some one way skip or other reason they weren't hearing  but
Right after the 3b9 worked W4TEA, I was hearing W1, W2, W3, W4, W5 W8, W9 W0
and VE3 stations calling.    If I had not actually heard W4TEA's  qso on
1.827 solid both ways, I might have thought they were listening down as they
have done in the past

Not sure if  the 3b9 guys are getting feedback from you or not but last
night was the first time I have been able to hear them from this QTH
starting at 0150 - 0220Z.

 If they are getting posts from this reflector I would not want them to
think that based on gary's report that 0150 is a bad time for them to listen
for East coast etc.  According to spots I saw, the K7's (even tho I didn't
hear them) were indicating they were hearing  the 3B9 as well.

I saw another post where one of the 3B9 ops spent 4 hours calling cq and
worked only 4 stateside one evening.  That is what i call determination and
not something I would call FUN.  Sounds like how it used to be at W3PP
calling cq on a dead band with the automatic CQ machine while reading
on4un's low band book while getting a reply every 30 minutes or so..

They are doing a great job so I hope you can encourage them to return at
this time again tonight as it appears most of the country is hearing them in
this window.

73

Press on regardless


chet N6ZO


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Nichols" <kd9sv at comcast.net>
To: "topbandreflector" <topband at contesting.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 5:16 PM
Subject: Topband: 3B9C tonight


> 3B9C has been solid Q5 here in northern Indiana since my sunset at 0004Z
> with not too many stn's calling, however they must be having noise
problems
> as they continue to CQ quite a lot...de gary, kd9sv
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Topband mailing list
> Topband at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/topband

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