Topband: Nobody can hear me

[Art]

Jim Miller WB5OXQ in Waco wrote:
>> I have not had time to build a new antenna for 160 so I tried the DX
>> sloper.  I could hear pretty well with several stations over S9 so I tried
>> throwing my call in a couple of times at 100 watts and got no response.  I
>> hesitate to use much power on the sloper because NU5D warned me his end
>> insulator caught fire.  Anyway I tried again at 500 watts, still nobody
>> could hear me so I risked it and tried 1kw, still no response.  Then I
>> figured if this antenna is so worthless I will try again  pushing the
>> limit but still got no response at 1500+ so this antenna must be totally
>> worthless.  I cannot get any higher than 60' for the center and one tower
>> has too many antennas on it to try to use it for a vertical and my other
>> tower is a crankup 3 section.  I plan to try the linear loaded dipole soon
>> and see if it will work.
>> WB5OXQ
>>     
> Jim...The other late night there were 6 or 7 new Europe countries on with
> very strong signals testing for the CQ160. The entire USA was
> calling. Usually I don't have much trouble breaking EU pileups when
> sigs are good. Think I could work anything? NAW! I plugged away for
> almost 2 hours, never worked a thing! Of course, nobody west of the Mississippi did either, with a couple glaring huge station exceptions.
>
> Then this weekend in the CQ 160 test things turned around nicely with over 30 countries in the log.
>
> Just never can tell about top band.
>
> 73 Art
> near Allison Colorado
>