On Jan 2, 2006, at 4:29 AM, Stan Stockton wrote:
>> From: R.Measures <r@somis.org>
>> Date: 2006/01/02 Mon AM 05:56:44 EST
>> To: Joe Isabella <n3ji@yahoo.com>
>> CC: Amps <amps@contesting.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Amps] How about this furnace?
>
>> In a telephone conversation with a multi-multi contest station
>> owner-operator in Colorado - whom I knew ran several 2500W amplifiers,
>> he kvetched at length about contest stations that used "illegal 10kW
>> amplifiers". The laugher is that the advantage of a 10kW amplifier
>> over a legal amplifier is only 8db - hardly noticeable with QSB.
>
> Rich - I am surprised that you would laugh at 8 db and refer to it as
> "only" 8 dB - hardly noticeable with QSB."
I definitely laughed. On moonbounce, 8db is humungous, on 40m, it's the
next fade. The original Plywood Box gave me 10db over the average
jammer, but it could not prevent jammers from defecating on the other
people in the group. For me, building QRO was fun, but it definitely
did make the jammers run.
>
> 8 dB is only the difference between your average, city-lot shunt fed
> tower on 160M and perhaps the highest gain 160M antenna in the world
> which, just like having that gain in transmit power, is no advantage
> on receive because a good beverage system would outperform that
> antenna on receive. 8 dB is "only" the difference between a stack of
> five element yagis (10 elements) and approximately sixteen five
> element yagis (80 elements) in phase which would also perhaps be the
> largest antenna system on any HF band..
I do most of my serious DXing these days on the telephone or on the
Internet.
>
> The difference between 2500W and 1500W is extremely difficult to
> achieve with antenna gain once you already have about 13 dBi on an HF
> band. There are plenty of variables in comparing results in
> contesting without losing sleep or feeling guilty as to what place you
> might have achieved relative to someone else who worked harder on
> their antennas and did a better job of operating if you been legal in
> your operation.
>
> In my opinion, running 2.5KW or 10KW in a contest is exactly
> equivalent to playing in a golf tournament and dropping a ball out of
> your pocket when no one is looking instead of declaring a lost ball.
>
The difference is that winners of golf contests get paid money and the
winners of radio contests don't.
cheers, Stan
Richard L. Measures, AG6K, 805.386.3734. www.somis.org
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