Topband: Difficult rxing in contest environments in EU

[Andrew]

Wolf Ostwald wrote:

> Everyone knows that the density of stations in the US is bigger in the east
> than in the west. The density of stations in Europe is even bigger than the
> east coast`s density. That means first, that we have more layers of stations
> on top of each other, plus these stations have stronger signals with each
> other due to shorter distances between them. 
> That creates a difficult RF-environment in itself.
> In the first 50kcs of the band in EU, it is not uncommon to have an S9 plus
> 20 db floor on a TX antenna, with a few peaks reaching up 50 db over.

<snip>

> One needs to contest on a band with virtually no "dead zone" in Europe, to
> grasp the rx-difficulties over here. "Frequency fights" and deliberate
> jamming are a common thing, due to the small band in comparison to the
> number of contestants. These things naturally go unnoticed to a far away DX
> stn, trying to call in.

Wolf, you are 100% correct.  Having contested from both sides of the
Atlantic (from W3LPL and GI0KOW), I can say from experience that, during
a major contest, 160m in the US sounds like a nice quiet gentlemanly
band when compared to the complete and utter bedlam that is heard in Europe!

I think it would be a real eye-opener for a lot of people outside Europe
if someone in central Europe with an SDR radio were to make a recording
for about an hour of 1.810-1.900MHz during a major contest and make it
publicly available for anyone to play offline through the publicly
available SDR software.  Only then could others truly appreciate the
severe RX environment that is experienced in Europe and why they get
frustrated when loud EU stations simply can't hear them because of the
noise level.

Vy 73,

Andrew AC6WI / GI0NWG