Topband: The death of 160m DX contests?

[Richard (Rick) Karlquist (N6RK)]

 I shall continue to S & P but don't bother to
> call CQ anymore.
>
> The CQ 160 is pretty much the same game - the DX window in both the CQ WW
> and CQ 160 are hopelessly full of big US and European stations and
> pipsqueaks like me that are more than seven or eight thousand kilometres
> away from NA/US just get trampled on when they CQ.

In the pre-sunrise times for the Western US (from 1200-1600Z),
the DX window is often nearly empty during contests.  You shouldn't
have any trouble calling CQ there and being heard, especially
if you ride the wave of the >6 dB sunrise peak as it sweeps across
W6/W7 land.  In the ARRL last week, there were massive pileups
on VR and BV stations that were booming in at sunrise.
Last year, JT1CO and others had big pileups going.
It got so bad that one station was running split frequency.
Even with the pileups, the DX window was available because not
all of them were in the window.  The big area of congestion from here in the
morning
is the 1810-1825 JA band.  While CQ'ing there, I regularly check
1825-1840 for any DX on both the SE and NE beverages.  I feel
that I am limited only by propagation, not QRM.

Rick N6RK