Topband: re: conditions on 160 during contest

[Lee K7TJR]

Finally after acres of radials and eleven receiving antenna positions, I feel better about living on the west coast for 160.. You guys that can work europe with your dipoles at 30 feet from the East coast have always made me feel jealous.. I worked my first EU station a while back during the very rare auroral cap low. For you on the East coast that are still looking for your first Ja contact I feel bad. We at K7TJR (K7ZUM and myself) made 117 JA contacts during the contest. We had no idea there were that many JA stations on 160. With 8 elements in one unique design RX antenna I can truly say it is ALL about phasing and or lack of for performance on 160.  Just when you think your antenna array may be phased correctly, it may not be. Thanks to all for helping us to break 1000 contacts from the west coast.. Highlight was VR2BG sending and sending until the light finally went on in my head to listen in the right direction for his signal. Thanks Brett.. Also apologies to the UA boys as a bad street light in that direction limited our signal to noise to the north.. We knew you were there just could not make the exchange. As for the caribeans and the D4B station in that direction from here, we could only work a few.. It is nearly impossible to hear and or work most of these stations in the contest because of the wall of signals across the US calling and calling. D4B was loud as well as the PJ2, NP4, and more. We did not work the D4B station because of a US station CQing right on top of him in the window. Please read the rules before the contest guys?? VK and ZL signals were light with only a few in the log. Also to you boys with the ft1000's, just because you can now slide right up to within 200 Hz of a clean strong signal with your new whiz bang filters and start cqing, It does not mean that your clicking side bands do not extend right over into the adjacent stations pasband. It is a lot better now but hopefully we can keep cleaning these rigs up. Thanks for all the fun guys.   Lee  K7TJR Oregon