Topband: C21MM

[Steve Harrison]

On 10/20/2024 7:07 PM, Don Moman VE6JY wrote:
> I give more credit to A8OK - they had great CW signals out here in western
> Canada, night after night.   Many locals worked them too. Especially strong
> AFTER I struggled to work them, of course. I got them on 36 bands modes -
> the extra 2 were 160!

They certainly did; they got on the appropriate band in the appropriate
time frames, and as a result, worked all the world. I easily worked them
on the nine bands that matter 8-) 4W8X was another well-run one,
although it took me almost two weeks to work them on all nine bands.

Take another look at the "Continent by Band" statistics for C21MM; they
actually don't seem to be favoring Europe so much, as they have almost
as many Asian Qs; more, in fact, on several bands. I see the main
difference this time being that they're working FAR more digital during
the hours favoring North America, than either A8OK or 4W8X did (although
I haven't looked at the stats for those two yet; just my gut feeling). I
predict that the computers of most North Americans will wind up with
many more QSOs than we humans will 8-/

In other words... AI is taking over here in the Ham world now! John
Troster, W6ISQ's (SK) stories about computers working our DX for us have
already come to life for a few years, and will likely become the norm
within another year or two, at the rate that DXpeditions are switching
to digital and abandoning the mike and key 8-(

PX0FF had an acceptable excuse for the lack of topband Qs as well as the
very few 80m Qs: they suffered from RFI noise. It was apparently so bad
that even their computers could not cope with it. C21MM has a different
excuse; they say their man-made noise is very low, but the atmospheric
noise is very high. I don't have the vaguest inkling why they don't have
Beverages to reduce that noise; I don't know how well a DHDL antenna
works for that purpose.

Steve, K0XP


> On Sun, Oct 20, 2024 at 8:00 PM Wes Stewart via Topband <
> topband at contesting.com> wrote:
>
>>   The realities about some of these DXpedtions is that they are organized
>> by Europeans and favor working EU. Take the just concluded (if they kept to
>> schedule) PX0FF expedition.  The ops were all Europeans and >60% of their
>> Qs were with EU and only 21% were with NA.  They didn't even operate 160
>> CW.  They made 1046 FT8 QSOs on 160 out of >150,000 total.
>>
>> 8R7X was another one with EU 54% and NA 31%.  Of course propagation
>> favored EU, but they were active long enough that I worked them on both 160
>> CW and FT8 as well as 22 other band/modes.
>> Ditto A8OK that I worked on 33 band/modes, none on topband.  EU 64%, NA
>> 19%.
>> I'm not trying to disparage our EU friends, I'm just pointing out the
>> numbers.
>>
>> C21MM will be QRV for at least another week.  So far they haven't made any
>> topband CW contacts and only 6 with NA presumably on FT8.  They claim to
>> have installed an RX antenna, but have high noise.  So we shall see, but
>> I'm not holding my breath.  To their credit they have worked about the same
>> number of CW and FT8 Qs and a few on RTTY, three of them mine.
>>
>> AA7JV is a dedicated 160 man, who will put in the hours needed.  These
>> other guys are not so motivated and want to run up their Q count by working
>> the most productive bands, or by turning on the FT8 robots.
>> Wes  N7WS
>>
>>
>>      On Sunday, October 20, 2024 at 12:11:54 PM MST, Jim Brown <
>> jim at audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote:
>>
>>   On 10/20/2024 11:14 AM, Steve Harrison wrote:
>>> If possible, please spend some time attempting to work some North
>>> American stations on *160 and/or 80m **CW*. A few minutes here and there
>>> is NOT enough; HOURS on the low bands are needed in order to catch the
>>> propagation peaks all across the NA and SA continents.
>> YES! Veteran expeditioner AA7JV recognized that topband openings tended
>> to happen on one or two nights of a multi-week activation, and developed
>> networks to allow simultaneous operation on CW and FT8 during every hour
>> there's a possibility of propagation. One of the most glaring failures
>> is abandoning the band at the first hint of daylight, when propagation
>> PEAKS over the next 45 minutes to an hour!
>>
>> 73, Jim K9YC
>>
>>
>>
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