[TowerTalk] 40 meters

[Tom McAlee]

Hi Bob.  I didn't mean to say that anyone here could stand a chance against the west coasters doing a run of JAs in a contest.  In a contest, I'm happy to get one JA station on each of the low bands for the multiplier :)  As you know, EU is the bread and butter on the east coast when it comes to racking up the points.

I was talking more about DXing than contesting.  He was referring to seeing the cluster spots of Asian stations in the morning hours.  I was under the impression he was interested in working DX, not running JA stations in a contest.

When it comes to hunting down that rare DX, the fact that you have 8 to 10 hours of short-path openings to Asia every night is exactly why I said what I did!  Here on the east coast we need to take advantage of those long-path 40m openings at 5:30pm in December.  You won't be in the 40m pileup at 2:30pm local time.  Sure, we can work them at sunrise also, but at that time we'll be competing with the west coast stations.

Tom, NI1N


----- Original Message ----- 
  From: BobK8IA at aol.com 
  To: tom at klient.com ; towertalk at contesting.com 
  Sent: Friday, March 18, 2005 12:23 AM
  Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] 40 meters


  In a message dated 3/17/05 10:12:44 PM US Mountain Standard Time, tom at klient.com writes:
    I've never operated from MI so I'm not familiar with the propogation there.
    But, from here in southwest Virginia, my best shot to southeast Asia is
    often on the long path, particularly around December, where our dusk is in
    synch with their dawn.

    I can work into that area during our dawn as well, but the west coast
    stations often still have a better shot at them than I do.  Using the long
    path at our dusk, it is still 3 hours before the west coast sunset... they
    won't be competing in the 40m pileups.

  Tom;

  Respectfully, there is no way you an touch the west coast guys into JA/SE Asia on 40m. Here in AZ, we dont need to rely on the afternoon long path to be in those pileups. Why? Because we have 8 to 10 hrs of JA short path openings every night. During CQWW CW last fall I worked almost 900 q's on 40m and 460 of them were JA's. I dont think you'll be doing that JA volume from W1-land, hi.Its our bread and butter here, as far as contest volume goes.

  OTOH, Eu runs here are not anything like you experience. I've operated both coasts and in the middle. Location, location. 

  73, Bob K8IA
  nr The Superstition Mtns
  Arizona, USA