Topband: Difficult rxing in contest environments in EU

[KL7RA]

>Many of op's calling so far from my QRG that I found callers 
>even 500Hz away! I never had problem with that in 1988 
> So what happends guys? 
> 
> 73 - Petr, OK1RP

The receivers are much better today and everyone uses narrow
filters to squeeze into crowded bands. This is a good thing. We
still have ops using the older equipment and they tune to what
sounds good to them using what they have. A good CW op will
use the rit a lot to find them. 

During the contest I needed to find a hole in the JA window. If
I tuned the rit up a little above 20Hz I heard someone running 
good rate, down 20 Hz and another running rate. As long as
none of us three shifted we had three stations running okay in 
a very narrow slice of spectrum. I'm sure it sounded like a mess
to ops using older radios. It also doesn't last long, one ten second
wait to copy a weak station and the freq is gone. 

The skill at one time was finding mults, now it's finding a freq.

73 Rich KL7RA