Here we are to thank CQ MAGAZINE and WW 160 Contest manager for
fantastic opportunity for contesting again on the TOP BAND !
Thanks also to all of You for having called us, with special care
to who we couldn't copy, expecially from USA.
We are very sorry for, but this happened because of the HUGE QRM
being existing on the band here in Europe.
One european station (but much more were there) was enough to destroy
reception of DX signals in the DX window and out even for who, like us
was using an high gain directional array.
The DX window needs probably to be somehow modified, at least for
the SSB session. If 5 KHz could be reasonable on CW,(narrow bandwiths),
on phone this seems to be absolutely unuseful (too small). To gain a
place it is a matter of "brute force" but the benefit is relative.
This is way we sadly decided to stay out from, having best results
(in DX qsos) with split operations. (even if, nearly all the times we
found a clear spot for receiving, a certain european station, whose
suffix is "AA", started to call just there, blanking our reception)
Behind someone unsportmanship, it could be not a bad idea to make
different DX spots windows for calling from EU, Africa, Asia, vs.
AMERICA direction and vice versa, meanwhile receiving split in other
small "protected areas".
For a solution like this the required banwidth could be only twice
the actual DX window, but the "efficency" would be exponentially better.
In a system like this several stations could call even close to each
other without making each other reception hard or impossible !!
This is only just one idea for having what the band is potentially
able to offer but's kept hidden. A number of (different) ideas could
be a good starting point for a future improvement in score an fun !!
------------------
Relating to the contest we noticed medium conditions and a quite big
activity here in Eu. There was a lack of Asiatic stations while the
Africa ones were very rare.
Concerning propagation between southern Europe and North America the
first night was definitely much better than the second.
OUR VERY PRELIMINARY BREAKDOWN IS THE FOLLOWING:
IR4T Multi single ( ops. I4JMY I4UFH I4YSS IK4IEE )
QSO QSO-pts COUNTRIES STATES/VE prov. SCORE
572 3077 68 23 280.007
That's all, for now. 73's and see you soon in the ARRL and CQWW WPX !!
The IR4T Crew
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