Topband: The East Coast Advantage

[Jim Brown]

On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:39:21 -0700 (PDT), Julius Fazekas wrote:


>I personally have called you and other West Coast stations 
>mentioned repeatedly without so much as a dittydahdahditty in 
>various contests

You're in my log seven times on Top Band from my CA QTH, and at 
least 75% of the time, I'm listening on a NE Beverage. The exception 
is late at night and early AM when I'm working the Pacific. And even 
then, W3DQ managed to come through loud and clear to work me in the 
middle of a JA run. 

Yes, the west coast has a distinct advantage in working into the 
Pacific -- JA, VK, ZL, and so on. There are sometimes a lot of JAs 
to work -- I think I've worked as many as 70 or 80 in a 160 contest 
-- but only one multiplier, and there are not very many stations on 
topband in other countries.  An equal number of EU/AF Qs would yield 
at least two dozen mults. There are a LOT more country multipliers 
in Europe and Africa, and there are a LOT more active hams than in 
the Pacific Rim. You're also a lot closer to the Carribean, which is 
another cluster of multipliers, but thanks to QRN, it can take a lot 
more signal to get through to them. 

73,

Jim K9YC