First, my apologies to Wil DJ7AA for not responding to
his call (as reported in his 3830 report). I'm sure there
were others. I *was* alternating my listening between
my "shorty" NE Beverage and other antennas during
potential EU periods, but other than ON4UN, I didn't
work any Europeans. I heard bits of a G4 and maybe
a bit of an Italian (IV3PRK?).
I was awaiting the DX to generate pileups in the DX
Window (which was *generally* free from US stations,
with one notable exception from 7-land), but conditions
didn't seem to allow them to attract a pileup. Since
my personal goals were to maximize QSOs and Grids
rather than score, it made no sense for me to spend
a lot of time calling CQ DX.
Noise and band conditions in Ohio were very odd. The
Europeans I heard were very weak and 'thready', with
QSB bobbing them slightly above to below the noise.
This as consistent with conditions here this season
with few exceptions. The "Left Coast" folks were
similarly weak, owing in part to the incentives for
them to be running low power in this contest.
What was different was that the "Shorty Beverages"
almost never were better than the Inverted-L on
receive, in any direction. This was in sharp contrast
to their performance during the ARRL 160M Contest,
when the Bevs worked well for me. Weather was
clear locally, although there were storms South and
West.
What an odd obsession we all have!
Jeff Maass K8ND
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/topband.html
Submissions: topband@contesting.com
Administrative requests: topband-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems: owner-topband@contesting.com
|