[UK-CONTEST] AFS SSB G3SJJ

[G3SJJ]

251 Qs.       A few points to discuss so apologies for the length of this.

Several phrases come to mind, amongst the more printable ones would be
"Hoist by his own petard." Just into the third hour having reached the 200
Qs comfort zone I was just about to call another station on the sub rx/tx
and when I heard Ron GW3YDX ask on my run freq if it was in use, whatever
combinations of buttons I pressed in the panic to change the tx back and say
yes, I can't really say, but I remember seeing 7000, 3539, 3640 and even
something like 3460. Obviously by this time Ron was well and truly
established, and quite rightly so. I searched and pounced for the next hour,
managing to find a couple of run freqs for a few QSOs but the established
stations were just to close and there was just too much mutual interference.
I found a few stations in the last hour but had mentally switched off by
then. I must say that I have much sympathy with those who are unable to
create a run freq from the beginning on this one. There is just not enough
band space, seems to me that for this four hour session there is
justification in extending the sub-band up to 3780.

With the above comments in mind, I also think the SSTV problem should be
addressed. The situation gets worse each year. The jammers were giving us
stick way out of their sub-band, and likewise we were giving them stick in
their sub-band. Can we not put a proposal in Radcom/their
journa/website/reflector or whatever that a reasonable compromise might be
that if they don't jam us for 4 hours a year, the RSGB AFS SSB Contest
participants promises not to invade their sub-band for 364 days and 20
hours? Seems reasonable enough to me and I would gladly abide by the
proposal.

Don G3BJ raises the point of antenna height and likewise I have not bottomed
this one yet. Historically I do well in the CW leg but not in the SSB leg
and am always left thinking that my antenna just isn't performing as well as
the top stations. Indeed G4IIY in Carlisle says I was a goodly amount of dBs
lower than G3NLY. I recall some years back G3SZA working KL7 on topband on
around 1990 as he felt there was considerable better propagation over that
distance. That is about 9% difference and whilst we not talking about the
same distances, we are looking at at 6% difference in AFS.

Yours ever, Puzzled of Nottingham. Chris G3SJJ