Topband: Contest conditions

[Wes Stewart]

With a cloud-warmer antenna and only 500W in the bowels of southern Arizona 
working anywhere is problematic, but to the east is worse, even at SS.

I heard a lot of Caribbean contest stations with big signals but never could 
work them.  I think they are probably using directional RX antennas, but just as 
likely is that these are contest ops, not weak-signal DXers.  Many of them 
probably are DXers in real life, but during a contest, they simply don't want to 
dig for weak signals when there are big ones that are easier to work.  I'll 
probably get some guff for this, but that is my gut feeling.

To the west is a different story, especially at, and after, SR. Saturday morning 
my sunrise was at 1403Z.  Just before that (1357Z) I managed a QSO with some 
difficulty with BA4TB for a new one.  A few minutes later he was 579.  I worked 
four JAs between 1405 and 1418, all with good signals.  I had worked JA3YBK 
earlier at 1225Z but I listened to him call CQ until 1445Z, 43 minutes after 
sunrise.  KH6J was still Q5 at 1452Z, 50 minutes after sunrise.  There was a 
Washington station, whose call escapes me, still audible at 1455Z, nearly an 
hour past sunrise.  Remarkable.

Agreed on the Chinese stations.  I listened to one buy on Sunday morning calling 
CQ.  He was sending a one-by-one and seemed to fade or suffer a noise burst 
every time he gave his call, so it took a long time to decipher.  But it was 
pointless to call, I literally could not get my call sent in the time between 
his calls.

Agreed on the CW speeds. Too many going too fast and too damn many cut numbers.  
Who started this nonsense?

Wes N7WS


.On 11/27/2016 10:04 PM, Jim Garland wrote:
> I think some contest stations had directional receive antennas and omni
> transmitting antennas. There were times when S9 stations couldn't hear me at
> all, and I suspect they were just listening in a different direction. At
> other times, I could work stations just marginally out of the noise.
>
> I noticed that on 80m some Chinese stations would be booming in, with a
> pileup calling, but they'd never work anybody. (I never heard any of them on
> Top Band.)That I attributed to likely high noise levels in Chinese cities.
> Some of the big Russian contest stations were also blasting in but couldn't
> hear any callers, including me. I suspect some them may have been running
> "Russian Kilowatts."  By contrast, the big JA multi-multi contesters could
> hear and work everything.
>
> One problem I frequently encountered was DX stations sending CW way too
> fast. When a station is just out of the noise with fast QSB, as many
> frequently are, they're really hard to copy if they're going 45 wpm,
> especially if they have a short, unusual call, like T5W.
> 73,
> Jim W8ZR
>
>