Topband: QRP/Poor antenna stations ARRL160

[Jim Brown]

On 12/3/2012 8:18 AM, Bill Stewart wrote:
> N0TT, N0NI, W0SD, AA1K and about 80 other stations heard me, most on first or second call Saturday night. Best DXwas probably KA6BIM/7 in Oregon. Good ops and patient with the weak signal crowd.

YES!  I ran QRP with 5 watts, putting in a total of about 11 hours. I'm 
70 miles S of San Francisco, which is about 2,300 miles from NO3M and 
K8KS. Both of them pulled me out of the noise, with a lot of serious 
work on their end (take a look at NO3M's RX antennas, described on his 
website). KH6LC, KL7RA,N0TT,  N0NI, K5KC, N8OO, and WD5R heard me right 
away, and needed only a repeat on my section. W0SD heard me, but it took 
two tries and a lot of repeats to make the QSO. VY2ZM heard me, gave me 
a lot of QRZ?, but never copied my call.  I ended up with 130 QSOs in 36 
sections and 26 states.  West of the Mississippi, I missed only ND, NTX, 
and WTX.  Never heard ND and WTX. Thanks to them for the QSOs.

WD5COV (20 dB over S9), K9CT, WB9Z, W8MJ, K9AY were loud (S9 most of the 
time), but alligators.  None got into my log. All were CQ machines, with 
listening times in the millisecond range.

Conditions to W1, W2, and the rest of the east coast seemed quite a bit 
down from previous years.

73, Jim K9YC