Topband: CQ 160 WW experience

[ku8e@bellsouth.net]

  I remember the same thing about 160 one year when N8VW and myself drove over to N2NU's station in NJ for a CQWW SSB contest.  160 meters was full of wall to wall EU stations calling CQ with hardly anyone in the USA answering their CQ's We just tuned up and down the band working them all. It was like a different world as compared to the midwest USA.

  My favorite 160 experience was back in the early 1980's when I would operate DX contests from KS8S in western Ohio. Dean had constructed a phased vertical system and our friend Goose, W8AV,
who works for a company that installs towers for the broadcast industry, stopped by, with all of his test
equipment to tune this system. It was the Saturday of the CQWW SSB contest.  That night we tried it
out. We were doing M/M and their wasn't much going on so I found a frequency and gave a CQ. Next
think I know a loud Russian - UK2 something comes back and this guy is 10 over S9. I couldn't believe it. I give a QRZ and a ZD7 answers !!  Wow this is cool. Then the band opens to EU and I have
a big EU pileup calling. It was just unbeliveable !!

This system was up and running for a few years and I remember just about every DX CW contest or 
a 160 contest we could get a run of EU stations going... Seems like we always could work a JA just about every CW contest too..

73, Jeff KU8E