Topband: K4M on Topband - Final

[Garry Shapiro]

Several posters have drawn an analogy between K4M and FT5GA, which I 
believe to be inappropriate.

The experienced K4M leadership was aware of the Euro challenge on 
topband and strove every night to meet it, with Titanex V160e antennas, 
decent power and experienced operators. /Westernmost /Europe from the 
North Central Pacific in October is a difficult challenge, but K4M was 
QRV nightly on 160 for it. It is unfortunate that one operator, having 
heard one G, did not  immediately call for EU, but that is one possible 
lapse. Perhaps he was waiting for a second Euro caller before stopping 
his pileup. This was a DXpedition  that  was consistently trying, and 
which did put Euro QSO's in the topband logs, but unfortunately with 
poor results to the UK. It is topbandk, after all.

In contrast, to westernmost NA, FT5GA was consistently unresponsive to 
pleas from zone 3 to pilots---/on all bands--/for three weeks. It was 
not a matter of a topband opportunity, which for openings to our area 
would have been miraculous, but opportunities to work them at all, 
anywhere. The two efforts are not in the same room, and should not be 
compared in this way.

Garry, NI6T



G4GED Dave wrote:
> Ilmo OH2BO wrote>>>
>   
>> K4M:
>> Operation on Topband was an exceptionally great success. All the important
>> things did fit together.
>> Operators did know how to make Qs to cover most part of Europe on our
>> evening hours.
>> In the log there are 54 QSOs from OH-land
>>     
>
> Sorry Ilmo I have to disagree because you're only focusing on one part of 
> Europe.
>
> Yes, much of Northern and Central Europe did have good TB openings into K4M
> during their evening time and  many QSOs took place, so they did a good job
> for you!
>
> Western Europe does not enjoy those local evening openings over the N. Pole
> and on any very rare occasions that we do, the EU Wall is impossible to
> break through.
>
> Our only possibilities are very short openings at our local Sunrise time and
> this
> was never taken into consideration by K4M and therefore from our point of
> view a dismal failure on LF :-(
>
> Overall my posting was an attempt to remind DXpeditioners to such places
> that Europe is a very large mass and propagation to/from far south, east and
> west sides completely different. So please don't consider that working 54
> OHs is EU done-and-dusted until you have QSOs from countries at all EU
> extremities in the Log and very likely at vastly different times of the day!
>
> Same goes for North American of course and I think we all understand the
> frustration experienced on the West Coast with the FT5.  Some explantion of
> the possible reasons for their tactics has been offered very concisly by a
> couple of other posters on this subject.
>
> I'm leaving this subject there guys. I think we've given it a good thrashing
> and have expressed our differing points of view ;-)
>
> 73 and lets look forward to better luck with the forthcoming DXpeds
> Dave G4GED
>
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