Topband: C21MM

[Michael Tope]

Yes, I saw you in there when I was taking breaks from calling, Don. When 
I got up this morning, I was surprised to find that I wasn't in the 
online log as I got an "RR73" from them. That had me concerned that I 
had worked a very masochistic pirate 🙂. It it looks like they were just 
late updating the log, however. My Alpha 87 is dead, so I am just 
running ~600 watts from a KPA500 into my 55ft top-loaded vertical. 
Clearly Southern California had a big propagation advantage over Alberta 
to that part of the world last night as you are definitely shooting a 
bigger flame in their direction than I am.

Hopefully the team will be able to sort out their QRN challenges and 
band conditions will improve. I am really hoping things improve enough 
for a CW contact.

73, Mike W4EF..........................


On 10/21/2024 8:40 AM, Don Moman VE6JY wrote:
> I was there too Mike, for way too many hours!  Up here they peaked at 
> -10 and were usually -16 or so.  They never heard my kw+ and full size 
> 4  square.  Same on 80m earlier.   For that area of the world, their 
> transmit signal was pretty weak (that night) and their rx certainly is 
> poor.  I thought conditions were fairly decent.
>
> Don VE6JY
>
> On Mon, Oct 21, 2024 at 3:03 AM Michael Tope <W4EF at dellroy.com> wrote:
>
>     C21MM has been in solid for well over 1.5 hours on FT8 tonight and
>     it's
>     still early. They were loud enough at times (at least on my end)
>     for a
>     CW QSO, but they didn't decode my signal on FT8 until their signal
>     peaked up to R=0, whereas on this end I was decoding solidly down to
>     R=-20. Clearly they have some receive challenges. The DHDL antenna
>     that
>     C21MM plans to use for receive has been employed by AA7JV on some
>     of his
>     expeditions, so it's got a proven track record. Perhaps there is a
>     storm
>     that is very close to them causing unusually high QRN.
>
>     I need to go to bed, today is a work day 🙁
>
>     73, Mike W4EF.................
>
>     On 10/20/2024 6:13 PM, Wes Stewart via Topband 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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