Topband: How do we get more people on Topband?

[Michael Tope]

alan eshleman wrote:

>Top Band DXing requires real estate.  It's possible to get on 160 with a compromise antenna and 100 watts and work DX every now and then, but the full Top Band experience requires space for antennas and an amplifier.
>
>I did not get serious about 160 until I moved from my postage-stamp-sized lot in Berkeley to my new QTH in semi-rural Sonoma County.  I have a little over an acre, surrounded by vineyards and pasture land.
>
>>From Berkeley, I worked KH6, JA, and a few other Pacific islands, but never even heard EU above the city noise.  Since moving, I have 111 DXCC entities worked on Top Band (though some operators, who shall be nameless, are slow to send the cards).
>
>I think we're dinosaurs, albeit happy dinosaurs.  Perhaps others can say something more encouraging.
>
>73,
>
>Alan/K6SRZ
>
>  
>
BTW, Alan, I should add that the best encouragement that folks like 
yourself who are blessed with a better than average locations can 
provide is to be active on the band. It is folks like yourself on the 
other side of the ponds that gives us small lot city dwellers a shot at 
new DX countries. Likewise, big guns on our side of the pond give little 
guns in other parts of the world an opportunity to work the US west 
coast. I think I remember reading that W8JI had logged over 500 unique 
JA callsigns from Georgia on topband. Odds are a large percentage of 
those 500 JA's were little guns strapped with compromise antennas.

73, Mike W4EF.................