On 10/20/2024 7:07 PM, Don Moman VE6JY wrote:
I give more credit to A8OK - they had great CW signals out here in western
Canada, night after night. Many locals worked them too. Especially strong
AFTER I struggled to work them, of course. I got them on 36 bands modes -
the extra 2 were 160!
They certainly did; they got on the appropriate band in the appropriate
time frames, and as a result, worked all the world. I easily worked them
on the nine bands that matter 8-) 4W8X was another well-run one,
although it took me almost two weeks to work them on all nine bands.
Take another look at the "Continent by Band" statistics for C21MM; they
actually don't seem to be favoring Europe so much, as they have almost
as many Asian Qs; more, in fact, on several bands. I see the main
difference this time being that they're working FAR more digital during
the hours favoring North America, than either A8OK or 4W8X did (although
I haven't looked at the stats for those two yet; just my gut feeling). I
predict that the computers of most North Americans will wind up with
many more QSOs than we humans will 8-/
In other words... AI is taking over here in the Ham world now! John
Troster, W6ISQ's (SK) stories about computers working our DX for us have
already come to life for a few years, and will likely become the norm
within another year or two, at the rate that DXpeditions are switching
to digital and abandoning the mike and key 8-(
PX0FF had an acceptable excuse for the lack of topband Qs as well as the
very few 80m Qs: they suffered from RFI noise. It was apparently so bad
that even their computers could not cope with it. C21MM has a different
excuse; they say their man-made noise is very low, but the atmospheric
noise is very high. I don't have the vaguest inkling why they don't have
Beverages to reduce that noise; I don't know how well a DHDL antenna
works for that purpose.
Steve, K0XP
On Sun, Oct 20, 2024 at 8:00 PM Wes Stewart via Topband <
topband@contesting.com> 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@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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