The operator of that Florida W4 with the 75/80 beam was WA4PXP. He now is
in North Carolina. I think the W4, who already had a good contest station,
is now a SK.
I think what has happened is that the W1, 2, VY2
stations thought they had 160 locked up in the CQ 160 CW until Tom came
along with his effective transmitting antenna. Ron W4WA (ex AB4RU) ran a
competive station on SSB. Even AA1K said Ron was working stations that he
could barely hear.
I think a better RX set up would only help marginly
as I have been told by VE1ZZ and VY2ZM that they can work Europe virtually
all day. Plus I have heard them working VK/ZL 2 hours before we get
conditions here. Case in point was my QSO with FK8CP. He was working VE1
then W1, W2, W3, W4 VA (N4CH, W4DR), and finally N4JJ. Minutes after the
N4JJ QSO the signal came up and was easily worked in GA. I feel that having
this double advantage is hard to beat. We are also at a disadvantage on
gray line propagation. I remember VE1ZZ alerting everyone that Heard Island
was on 1823 at 2045Z then W3BGN saying they were 579 at 2130. Its 2230
before we get grayline and most of the DX is now in daylight. This even
expands to 80 for say A52. I had to scratch out a QSO with A52 on 40 even
with my beam. We missed the window by 45 minutes even on 80.
But one big equalizer on 160 is the conditions. There have been times when
the Up East Coast stations have little or no propagation to desired areas
for a night while we are working them like gangbusters. This happened to me
way back in 1970 in the CQ WPX SSB. I was working all over Europe on 10 and
only stations in the SE USA had conditions. One SM5 said he was tired of
listening to me call CQ for hours. I rang up the NA record that was not
beaten until 1978.
I feel that the Up East stations stepped up their operating to re-take the
advantage they had. K1DG and W5WMU are building stations in Maine so there
will be more Up East stations soon.
Keep trying. The logs I used to look at said W8JI was the strongest station
in LY or UU7.
73 Dave K4JRB ex K5MDX 1957-1973
Retired CQ WW 160 Director
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