Topband: Stew_Perry & CQ_callers

[Tom Rauch]

> 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!>

My perspective of this is:

1.) When a DX station is in the Window very few other people 
*without packet* capable of running people and none of the 
inexperienced 160 ops will be looking there. Only those who 
have a second receiver they are tuning or who are using 
packet or sitting waiting to answer DX would find you.

2.) When people call, they often call too short or give up 
too soon. Antennas can be so directive that a station that 
is S-9 will be in the S1-2 noise floor when a sharp antenna 
is not pointed in the correct direction. With at least 8 
directions to scan through, a quick call or a single call 
will not work for normal signals. Hence the repeated QRZ and 
?? calls. People who would be quite workable if they sent at 
a reasonable pace and repeated ONLY their calls often give 
up.

3.) When signals are weak, there might only be one or two 
arrays out of four (at this location) that hear the weak 
signal. There not only are eight directions to choose from, 
there are two or more arrays in those directions. Even with 
fast switching it takes several seconds of scanning to find 
someone who is weak.

4.) Clicks were getting better, now they seem to be getting 
worse. In the ARRL 160 a loud W3 who apparently changed rigs 
recently and who was 2kHz wide parked a few hundred Hz below 
me, and that wiped out about 10-20 JA stations that would 
otherwise have been workable. Stations that were persistent 
and repeated their calls enough could be put together, but 
not the single or two call guys. Split operation would help 
this....and 1kHz is NOT enough.

5.) QRN can be bad. This was the case in the Stew according 
to K4BAI.         John said he had to put attenuators in 
line to copy anyone during the morning hours.

6.) Speed is bad. People need to slow down on 160 unless 
they are working stations one after the other that are 20dB 
out of the noise. There is no point going 30 WPM if the 
contact rate is one every 30 seconds or slower.

As an additional note I find almost never see a case when 
anyone in the east or southeast hears a station that can't 
be detected on some antenna here. I believe it is a matter 
of the signal almost always being there in a wide area, but 
not quite over the noise floor except at a few locations or 
on a particular antenna array. Even six dB of signal to 
noise sounds wonderful, and sometimes just one extra dB is 
the difference between a QSO or not. The perception we have 
is the signal goes from nothing at all to 589, but factually 
almost all "jump for joy" 589's or 599's to DX are really 
only a legitimate 549 or 559. My IC-751A assigns about 1 or 
2 dB to each S unit at the lower end of the scale, and it 
sounds like that is correct by ear. If we go by the most 
commonly used 5dB per S unit or the less popular IARU region 
2 (?) desired goal of 6dB, most receiver fail terribly below 
mid-scale. The result is we have an ingrained perception 
small changes in absolute signal level compared to noise are 
very large changes....like flipping a switch. In actuality 
it is just a  few dB change.

73 Tom