Topband: Wednesday 160m DX Activity Night

[David Olean]

Hi Wes,

I got home late (0100 UT) from a school band performance (grandkids!) 
and found no activity to speak of. I hoped to find G3YRO but no luck.  
QRN levels from lightning had dropped towards Europe but there was zilch 
for activity. My fault that I did not stick around after 0230UT.   I 
suspect that condx were not so good that way.  I would agree on the 500 
watts. On 160, you need all the goo you can muster for the DX.  I love 
playing with QRP on 160 and I can reach out maybe 800 or 900 miles on a 
good night, but, when calling stations across the Carib, Atlantic or way 
out in the Pacific, even 500 watts is "iffy".  So many times I hear loud 
DX stations and I try to call at the 100 watt level to no avail.  It is 
so easy to have 10 dB of extra noise on your receiver and that prevents 
you from hearing anything other than the loudest signals.  The nights 
that are truly quiet and with the band open, are few and far between. I 
run 1500 watts out and feel that I hear much better than I can transmit 
as well.  It is difficult.  I guess that is why I love 160!

I am winding a bunch of coax chokes today to help my 160 noise 
problems.  I am also going out to get about 80 lbs of ground rods for 
the same project. :-)

Dave K1WHS

(another 160 newbie!)


On 3/22/2018 2:49 PM, Wes Stewart wrote:
> Worked PJ5/SP2GCJ @0315 for a new one for me.  OA4TT would have been a 
> new one too  (I'm a newby).  He was quite strong but the one time he 
> replied to me he didn't have my complete call, missing the "s", and he 
> gave up and went back to CQ very quickly (I thought).
>
> HC2AO was ESP, at best.
>
> It's interesting that I seem to hear better than I get out, even using 
> the inverted-L on RX. 500W doesn't seem to cut it.
>
> Wes  N7WS
>
>
> On 3/22/2018 6:36 AM, Lee. KX4TT via Topband wrote:
>> Hmmm - local QRM (lights from nearby baseball field) made early 
>> evening copy tough on CW, so I booted up WSJT-X and saw some EU 
>> stations there (5B4AIF was steady copy, and some other EU stations 
>> would show up from time to time), from 0100-0200. Not the best 
>> conditions, but also not the worst. Worked OA4TT about 0400; Jack was 
>> QSA4-5 copy between some nasty static crashes. That's what I get for 
>> not wanting to shovel snow -) .....
>>
>> 73 de Lee KX4TT
>> Tampa, FL
>
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