Topband: Stew_Perry & CQ_callers

[Rick Karlquist]

Greg - ZL3IX wrote:
> I tried calling CQ in the window at various points during the contest,
> but only in the last hour and a half did it yield any results.  I
> thought that, although 32 appeared clear to me, there were probably
> little pistols CQing that I couldn't hear, but were masking my signals
> in NA.  In a private discussion with WE3C however, John told me that the
> window was pretty clear for most of the test.
>
> At the same time as I was not getting results in the window, I could
> move off in S+P mode, and usually be heard by the guys I called, so I
> seemed to have propagation.  I must say, however, that the Q often
> started with the other guy hearing something, sending ??, my repeating,
> and gradually building the contact from there - not exactly armchair copy!
>
> So why did I have no results from calling in the window?  I can't
> explain it.  Just put it down to another of the oddities of this band!
>
> When I did finally achieve some results by calling CQ on 32, my rate was
> the best of the whole test - 14 Q's in the last hour compared with just
> under 9 per hour averaged over the 9 hours of darkness.
>
>
> Greg, ZL3IX

I spent most of the last 4 hours of the contest CQ'ing in the JA
window (1810-1825).  Greg came back to my CQ and I worked him.  It
was just as he described, hearing something, then ??, etc.  My
situation is that I have 6 beverages and an omni.  This year I
put up a special omni, which was a horizontally polarized dipole
at the back of my property 1/4 mile (400 meters) from any power lines.
This allows me to at least realize someone is calling
me in most cases.  To speed up switching between antennas, I changed
from a rotary switch to a panel of pushbuttons, giving me random
rather than sequential access.  What I try to do is listen on the
omni for a second after the CQ then run though the likely beverages
depending on propagation.  At that time of night, I would check the
JA beverage, then the east coast beverage, then the others.
The 210 degree beverage is basically just for ZL, and I did not
necessarily run through it every time.  I was able to hear Greg
on the omni and eventually figure out who he was and get on the
210 degree beverage, which was a good 6 dB better than the omni.

This year, thankfully, the DX window was fairly clear.  One one
stateside lid was in there.  (I think I am going to start spotting
these clowns so everyone knows who they are).  I heard ZL3IX
CQ'ing in there near the end of the contest.  By that time, he
was easily audible on the omni.  I should point out that there were
many callers not getting through.  This is frequently the case on
160, and doesn't mean ZL3IX was deaf.

Since I was running low power, I had a problem holding the CQ frequency
if I spent too much time listening.  I decided to solve this by
sending QRZ if I had to listen more than a few seconds.  This may
have given stations calling the impression that they weren't getting
out very well.

Rick N6RK