Topband: Looking for a few Last states on 160m

[Jim Brown]

On 1/23/2012 5:50 PM, Steven Raas wrote:
> I will admit I was a tad bothered when I read
> the CQWW160 Rules and found that only Multi/SOHP can use the cluster ( and
> still submit a score ). I would think that the SOLP guys would 'benefit'
> from it more,

Yes, that is strange, isn't it?  But many contests are like that.

One VERY important piece of advice for you on this.  The states you're 
looking for are all quite well represented by guys with good stations, 
but propagation can cause the strength of the path between you and them 
to vary quite a lot over time, often from hour to hour. I've run 160M 
contests with 1.5kW, 100W, and 5W, and tracked what I've worked vs 
time.  The peak times for me to work east coast stations seems to be the 
several hours before your sunrise, but there are also good peaks at 
other times much earlier in the evening.  A year or two ago, I worked 
all states except SD with 100W in a CQ160 CW, and could easily have 
worked SD if the guy had been active that year.

Another piece of advice.  Some 160 ops can hear a lot better than 
others.  I can work a lot of east coast stations running 100W, and I 
can't work others running 1.5kW.  And some of the guys who can't hear 
are the loudest, and they CQ non-stop.  :)

And whether you're using the cluster or not, study results from previous 
160M contests and note the calls of the stations from the states you're 
looking for who post big scores.  K6LL (AZ) is easy to work from the 
east coast, so are W7RN (NV) and W0BH (KS).  KH6 and KL7 are the only 
states I missed from Chicago, but there are several KH6s with big 
signals, and sometimes from KL7.

73, Jim K9YC