Topband: ARRL-160 viewed frm EU

[Jim Brown]

On 05 Dec 2004 08:08 GMT, Dr .Wolf Ostwald wrote:

>The vast majority of stations active in the test could not be heard in EU, 
>this by observing the beacon US- contesters and watching whom they worked.

The stations you hear (and who hear you) are those with decent antenna farms. 
Many of us in the contest have poor antennas and lots of receive noise. I and two 
other of my friends here in Chicago (K9OR and KK9H) loaded up the feedline to 
our 80/40 dipoles as top-loaded long wires against an improvised counterpoise 
(in my case, a 135 ft long wrought iron fence plus rods plus some short radials).  
KK9H used the plumbing and heating system in his house as a counterpoise.  
Our houses sit on small pieces of land -- mine is 13m x 50m -- so Beverages and 
real transmitting antennas are out of the question.  K9OR's land is smaller, 
KK9H's a bit larger but not much.  

With these antennas and our noise, it is not surprising that you didn't hear us and 
we didn't hear you, but we managed to have a lot of fun anyway.  I made 522 Q's, 
including more than 20 to the west coast (>2,000 miles) and at least 100 that 
were >1,500 miles.  Part of the fun of ham radio is making the most of what you 
have, both technically ( building bettter antennas and understanding propagation) 
and operationally (improving operating skills). 


Jim Brown  K9YC