Topband: Working 'long' distances on 160m

[Grant Saviers]

My perspective as originally a "1" in Boston and now residing near 
Seattle, is the nickname "suffering sevens" is well applied to my 
friends here in the Pacific Northwest.

Simply, for the PNW, distance isn't that meaningful - it's path that 
matters (and latitude).  What was easy in Boston at 42N is very hard in 
Seattle at 48N re EU on both 80 and 160.  The path is mostly over land 
or ice and usually thru or around the edge of the aurora zone.  Arrival 
angles for 80 peak at less than 10*.  OTOH, JA's- yawn.  Almost exactly 
the same 4790 miles either way, Seattle to Tokyo or London.

So when you hear a "suffering seven" in EU, reach out.  We also get a 
chuckle when "the band is open" messages get posted from EU and what we 
hear is only noise.

I did get TB DXCC, all from PNW since 2018, so am not complaining. Just 
want some more ;) .

Grant KZ1W

On 9/25/2022 00:12, Steve Ireland wrote:
> G’day all
> 
> Some food for thought.
> 
> Like Roger G3YRO and others who were teenage UK radio amateurs in the 1960s/1970s I grew up radio-wise on 160m. In those days, the holy grail was to work across the Atlantic from UK/Europe.
> 
> Nowadays, living in Western Australia, it seems quite funny to think that working from Europe to into the east coast of North America is something that is still considered as real DX working on topband, as the distance is not relatively long and there is no shortage of stations (in theory!) at either end.
> 
> Back in the late 1960s/early 1970s, UK stations (and others in Europe) could only legally use 10W DC input, so working this distance was really difficult and thus ‘serious DX’. However, as the 1970s progressed, there were TL-922 linear amplifiers in use at various G-DXers (but of course, ahem, never on 160m).
> 
> Some years after this, 400W output became both legal and commonplace below 1832KHz in the UK.
> 
> Anyhow, my point is that the distance from Europe/the UK to east coast USA is relatively short – from the UK’s Newcastle Upon Tyne (where Roger lives) to New York is about 3,330 miles (about 5,360 km)  as the crow flies.
> 
> This is a very similar distance from Perth, Western Australia to Auckland, New Zealand – but no serious Southern Hemisphere topband DXer would consider a contact between VK6 and ZL1 as a DX contact. 😉
> 
> On the other hand, Perth to Newcastle Upon Tyne is 9,056 miles (14,574 km) while New York to Perth is 11,613 miles (18,690km). That to me is DX. But Australia (Perth in particular) is a long way away from anywhere else.
> 
> All a question of perspective, history and where you live I guess.  😉
> 
> Vy 73
> 
> Steve, VK6VZ/G3ZZD/VY2LF
> 
> Sent from Mail for Windows 10
> 
> 
>