Topband: Contest

[Bill Tippett]

KH7C wrote:

> Not that I am loud by any means,  but man when you are
20 over 9 and cant hear dozens of people calling wazzup?

WB8DSB replied:

> I used to think the reason big guns did not hear me were due to their
running directional receiving antennas, but I now suspect the majority of  the
problem has to do with the very narrow receive filters they  run.  During
this recent contest numerous big guns did not hear me when  they were full
scale on my S-meter, so I just kept changing my frequency ever so  slightly and
then they magically came right back.  It's amazing  how just a slight change
in my TX frequency made all the difference in the  world.

I agree.  Here's a related comment from my 3830 report:

"Just a few comments on operating.  I believe top-class rigs like the K3, Orion
and Flex 3k (5k still has a 2.4 kHz spur problem) are allowing stations to
operate much closer together.  Of course we still have the key clicks, phase
noise and bad spurious on some signals (some of which may be intentional).  The
problem I see when trying to use ~300 Hz spacing (instead of 500 Hz) is that too
many stations are calling off-frequency.  Even ~150 Hz off can create problems
when spacing is tight because you'll be outside the bandpass of the station
you're calling and also QRMing an adjacent station.  Hopefully as more rigs
adopt SDR capabilities, we'll see more stations zero-beating more accurately.
Europeans are much better at this than NA because they've had to live with
tight spacings for many years.  My hope is that as the K3 becomes more popular,
it may also help improve the TX signal quality of many of the trashy signals on
160 now."

73,  Bill  W4ZV