[TowerTalk] w1gkk & big arrays

[Jim Jarvis]

Hi Tom & Peter....

Yes, I noticed the aurora on northern latitude stations,
even as far south as Hamburg.  One DL and I noticed the
AU, and I mentioned it to him..and asked his qth.  

It's hard to notice signals that don't arrive, of course,
but the SM's seemed noticeably weaker as time went on.  

Tom's comments, below, are quite true, of course.  There are
many, many variables.  (I've had the same experienced on 
40, mobile cw..)  

One of the variables?  Those italian 5 watters sounded more
like 500, into a middling-decent array on 15.  

One conclusion from this year's arrl phone:  I copy cw better
than phone.  The extra bandwidth and splatter gives a headache
to older ears!.  

n2ea
jimjarvis at ieee.org 

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Rauch [mailto:w8ji at contesting.com]
Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2005 04:54
To: jimjarvis at ieee.org; Peter Sundberg
Cc: towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] w1gkk & big arrays


> Jim, I can tell you that during the contest the aurora was
extremely
> intense at latitude 65 deg north. With that type of
conditions I find
> myself being beaten by a lot of QRP stations despite the
fact that I am
> using a stack and a kw. Especially on 15/10 mtrs.
Frustrating... :-)
>
> So, it is not always antennas, conditions differ a lot
with
> latitude/longitude.

The same is true on 160 meters or any other band where a
combination of antennas, location, and propagation can
produce similar unexpected results. It isn't unusual for my
50W output transmitter (or even 10 watts) on an omni antenna
to beat several 1500W+ stations using directional arrays in
pileups, but of course that same 50W is killed by my 1500W
to directional antennas.

My mobile often wins in pileups on 40 meters CW, and
sometimes beats fixed stations on lower bands even on a band
with only 1% or less antenna efficiency. It's quite common
to beat a GAP vertical on lowbands from my mobile.

It's a combination of at least one major thing or even just
several small things at work. I look at the problem as one
of time vs. resources. With enough resources we spend less
time trying to accomplish something. People really only
compete against themselves or other similar stations in the
same region. I'm not impressed when someone 50% closer to DX
stations with a 75% saltwater path does better than an
inland station with twice the distance and a path 75% over
land.

73 Tom