Topband: N2XE Beacon Tribune - Six Million Miles Plus!!!

[John C Ceccherelli]

Bill, W4ZV goes into the history books with an impressive 6,807,692 miles
per watt!  The official calibrated and verified output power over the 4 day
run was 80.6 uW.  Let's put that in perspective:  Working the eastern edge
of Germany--say Berlin--from the east coast at 500mW would be 11,500 miles
per watt.  If you did it with 1mW, that would be 3,850,000 miles per watt.
Bill has put up 6.8 million miles per watt and he's not out of steam yet.
The guy is phenomenal.

By the way, the code word was ROGER.  Eight (8) stations got it and 1 had a
good shot at it.  That's 99,256 correct reports per watt--also a new
record.  It is never arm chair copy.  The stations that get it and many who
get bits and pieces put in a lot of time and hard effort.  I can't thank
them enough.  There are things you can do to improve reception besides
putting up a 1000 foot beverage.  Perhaps Bill would like to share some
tips.  In any event, the late Bill Pierpont, N0HFF, goes into some of the
psycho-acoustic science that can vastly improve weak signal performance.
If you don't have "The Art and Skill of Radio Telegraphy", get it!  It's
free and on the web or available in hard copy from FISTS.

The night of December 27 and 28 clearly had the best propagation.  Only
Paul, N1BUG snagged the codeword on the following evening.  Here's the
Summary in order of receipt:

Call, Name    State    Grid    RST    Time    Miles/watt    Rig/antenna

December 27

KR2Q, Doug    NJ    FN20ru    5?9    2021Z    769,231    TS940sat/half wave
wire
K3SV, Bill     PA    FN01ik    509    2111Z     3,476,427    1000D/4-square
N2NC, John    NJ    FN20ve    419    2113Z     1,232,010    1000MP/Dipole
W1CSM, Bruce    MA    FN42fu    439    2235Z    1,826,303     756/Dipole


December 28

K3UL, Bob    PA    FN11lf    349    2351Z     2,060,794    746pro/2 element
vertical array
K3JJG, Ed    PA    FM29bw    349    0030Z    1,929,280    Drake RC4/Slinky
Beverage
W4ZV, Bill    NC    EM92uk    529    0140Z    6,807,692    Orion/1000'
Beverage
N1BUG, Paul    ME    FN55mf    339    2355Z     4,352,357
TS450s/Inverted Vee

AA4XX, Paul, North Carolina reported copy of N2XE/B many times during the
run but never got good copy on the code word.  The QSB gods have been
treating Paul poorly of late.

For a change of pace, I'll run a 40 meter beacon tonight at 5mW on 7.0315
MHz  starting at 2100Z until at least 1300Z.  That should be heard around
the globe.

73,
N2XE