[TowerTalk] 5 db required to see?

[Tom Rauch]

> >>Over 48 hours, and a thousand
> >>contacts or so, it is inevitable that the 1-dB advantage will result in
> >>a few QSOs made that would not have been, otherwise.  
> >
> >This assumes that the operater's skill is sufficient to take advantage of
> > the 1 dB difference. 
> 
> Perhaps I should have said, "All other factors being equal..."  Of course,
> a good op will get more out of both the X-level and the X+1 dB level
> station over the course of a contest, and the 1 dB will bring him or her
> more gain than it would for a less-skilled operator.

and we know this because......?????

I suspect propagation, and who else is active, has a lot more to do 
with winning than a single dB in station parameters.

There is such a large "alphabet soup" going on, a soup that 
includes:

1.) Your skill

2.) Other's skill

3.) Propagation

4.) Noise

5.) Your mood and other's mood

6.) Blind luck of stumbling across a needed station that is on for 
limited time. 

...that we surely over-rate the advantage of a dB or two. If a 
significant number of stations are unworkable to you that are 
workable to others with one dB less signal level, that's one thing. 
But I doubt that happens very much above 1.8 or 3.5 MHz. 


73, Tom W8JI
w8ji@contesting.com

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