Topband: Contest weekend

[Jim Brown]

On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 23:48:54 -0500, Tom McAlee wrote:

>He would CQ CQ CQ, very loud USA stations would come back, and he
>would CQ CQ CQ again like he heard absolutely nothing.  

You (and lots of other guys working HF, especially 160) need to 
realize that those of us living in cities have noise levels that are 
10-20 dB higher than those of us living in the country. Moreover, 
those of us living in cities find it varying degrees of difficult to 
put up receiving antennas that help us cut through that noise. I'm 
really lucky to own my own home and have a loaded dipole for 80/40 
that I can load as a long wire on 160. A workable Beverage would 
extend into the lots of at least six of my neighbors, and it 
wouldn't point anywhere useful. 

I just spent six days on a remote mountaintop in CA where the 
nearest noise sources were 3-4 miles away. The EU stations are far 
easier copy on my dipole at that QTH than they are here in Chicago, 
even though Chicago is 1500 miles closer to them. I just managed to 
work CT3/VE3NZ from my Chicago QTH with 400 watts -- he is the first 
EU station I have even HEARD here in Chicago, and he came back to my 
first call. 

So it isn't that these guys are poor operators or poor at building 
antennas -- we're just working with both hands tied behind our 
backs!  

Jim Brown  K9YC