Topband: Yaesu Key clicks

[Jim Brown]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 08:49:26 -0500, Tom Rauch wrote:

>On the other hand with only about one hour of total
>operating time I worked all continents including deep into
>eastern Russia, two UA0's, and about 25 JA stations (who are
>only allowed to work CW on 160).

>I could have worked many more but that band was too crowded
>so I mostly stayed off and let others have fun.

Some folks with megastations like yours tend to lose sight of how 
the majority of hams have to live. A month ago, I sat at my 
mountaintop station in CA and had a bunch of 160 Q's on a 
Saturday night with 100 watts. But I had to wait until I was nearing 
retirement to acquire the rights to that site, and I only have time to 
get there a few times a year. More to the point, VERY few hams 
are that lucky. 

>It's normal to work 
>more than 1500 stations in a 160 meter
>CW contest when operating seriously. CW log entries are
>generally up every year.

Sure the guys come out of the woods for the 160 contests, and I 
can manage several hundred Q's from my city QTH. But I don't 
have to take my shoes off to count the number of evenings per 
year that occurs.  MANY times I have called CQ on 160 trying to 
learn how well my antenna system is working. When I called CQ 
from my CA QTH, I got lots of calls, most of them wanting to know 
who the big signal was. 

But most of the time, the big guns who profess to love the top 
band so much don't seem to want to lower themselves to talking 
to someone stateside -- unless it's a point in a contest.  How 
many guys on this list have had one Q per month on 160 that 
wasn't related to a contest or DX chasing?  I did some antenna 
work in the spring that I hope will improve my signal on 160, and 
I've spent time there, unsuccessfully looking for signal reports. 
Sadly, I've had to wait for a contest to get them. 


Jim Brown  K9YC