Walt I think this sort of backs up what you wrote. Here is the perspective
of someone who has worked a bunch of SSB tests over the past 38 yeas, and
has been a regular all night low band op from a multi op station. On SSB
the KH6s start rolling into the Midwest (IA) on 40 around 0400 and on 80
around 0600. In the SSB tests there is plenty of 40/80 activity to keep me
on the low bands and catch a KH6 during the EU openings.
But, my experience on RTTY (only 3+ years) is that there is much less
activity on 80. Because of that I find myself apt to move to a busier band
or QRT sooner and miss you or whoever from KH6. I might briefly go back to
80 to check for a mult, but often the activity level is so low that a minute
or two is all I'll spend.
More overall activity on 80 is probably the trick to having us there during
your opening. Unfortunately QRN on 80 often makes it harder to copy an S-5
RTTY signal than and ESP SSB or CW signal. Possibly the decline in the SFI
will also quite down the low bands and push more activity on to 80.
73 from IA
W0ETC
----- Original Message -----
From: "Walt Niemczura" <walt@hawaii.rr.com>
To: <w7ti@dslextreme.com>; <rtty@contesting.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 18:42
Subject: [RTTY] 80m from KH6
>
> Bill Turner wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 23 Oct 2001 23:54:04 -1000, Walt Niemczura wrote:
> >
> > >Not at all Bill. I'm just poking at Chen. I usually don't try 80m
> > >from the home QTH. I don't have the space for the wire. The only place
> > >I have decent luck is up at KH7R but Ken has a trapped horizontal
> > >rotatable dipole at 100'. BIG difference working from there.
> >
> > _________________________________________________________
> >
> > I'm just kidding too. I have a total of six 80m Q's with KH6 in the log
> > - not much for eight years of RTTY, is it?
> >
> > 73, Bill W7TI
>
>
> No, that is not a lot but there is a reason (at least I think I
> know what the reason is).
>
> In the brief four years I've played RTTY contest it seems that
> folks over there <mainland US> move like a herd during the course
> of a contest. This is more evident on the shorter ones than the
> longer ones.
>
> Most of these start at 0000Z (1400W) and I see a lot of activity
> on 20m and some on 15. There is little on 10 and I can't "hear"
> anything from the east on 40m. As the clock ticks I've noticed
> that activity will shift with propagation (naturally). However,
> with the RTTY crowd it almost seems like a tour group moving
> through a brewery.
>
> For example, I hear a lot of stations on 40 meters starting at
> 0200Z. This grows and then starts to decline about 0330Z. For us
> here that is 1730 and we can get there with LOTS of power and
> a 3El 40 at 80' (there is only one of those locally, KH7R) but
> by the time 40m is locally open a lot of you folks have migrated
> to 80m.
>
> 80 is worse. If we're lucky we can hear W6 at 0430Z. We might
> work one around 0500Z. We don't have full access to the band
> till 0530 under optimal conditions and usually not to 0600Z.
> When we get there the party is over. I've done a lot of 80m
> phone and cw in WW and WPX where there is a lot more activity
> but the problem is similar.
>
> If mainland folks expect to work 50 to 100 stations on 80m and,
> after 90 minutes they get near this number they don't hang around.
> By the time we have the opening folks are gone. For WW last month
> AH7R CQed constantly on 80m with 500 W into KH7Rs dipole. For
> 30 hrs worth of work he made 86 contacts. When folks called they
> were loud and told him he was also.
>
> I think that it's a geography problem mostly but also a mind set
> of RTTY contesters. Folks will get the Qs and mults they feel
> they can nab quickly and move on to more productive bands. I
> know I do that. That's why I don't bother with 80m from home.
> If folks started looking for Pacific mults starting at 0700 to
> 0800Z I'd be there singing my heart out. However, from home at
> least, it's a waist of an hour that might yield one or two
> Qs and mults where 40m would get me 30 Qs and some mults.
>
> I wish there was more activity also but it's hard to get folks
> interested in this part of the world for one or two Qs.
>
> 73
>
> Walt
> AH6OZ
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