The few of you who got into my log last night were blessed because I drank more
iced tea than I should have at dinner. I am normally in bed by around 2130 UTC
on weeknights because I have to go to work early.
I had been on 1829.5 around my sunset working TR8CA and a few Europeans.
Afterward, I left the receiver gain turned up just a little throughout the
evening to see if anything popped out of the noise while I was working at a
computer in the shack. Quite some time after I had gone to bed, that tea I
drank at dinner decided it wanted to be let out. When I got up, I noticed I
could hear some distinctly copyable CW coming from the turned down receiver in
the radio room. Once it got my full attention, I distinctly heard that the call
signs were North American. The stations were calling in a VQ9LA pileup. For a
brief time, those were some of the strongest signals I have ever heard here
from NA.
Though it was late, I decided to fire up the amplifier and try a CQ. By the
time I got the ancient Alpha warmed up and re tuned to a spot well above the
VQ9 pileup, the NA signals I heard in the VQ9 pileup had greatly diminished in
strength. I decided to try a few CQ's anyway. I was able to work a few NA
stations before the signals all fell below the noise. I needed many repeats on
most calls because of QSB and heavy static crashes on top of the steady QRN.
Perhaps the band lighted up again later, but I couldn't sit up too late waiting
for it to do so on a work week night.
This time the pennant was useless. I was hearing much better on the transmit
T. Back at the time of the Stew Perry, the T was useless for receiving and the
pennant earned its keep. 160 M is wierd!
I think some of the QSO's last night were repeats, which I don't mind at all,
but I hope a few more of you who have been trying for S9 for a long time
finally punched through my continual noise. If so, you would consider it one
of your proudest achievements if you understood just how bad my receiving
environment is.
I noticed afterward that someone posted on the DX-Summit that I was on a bad
frequency for Europeans. I wasn't trying to be heard in Europe at that time of
day. I get better results with European contacts earlier in the evening.
Anyway, I have lost my list of bad frequencies for Europe that I copied once
from this topband list. Will someone please forward a copy to me?
On the current thread concerning split operation - as is usually the case
here on Top Band, I could not hear a pileup last night, but after a while I
announced a small split when it appeared obvious that some stations were not
hearing my response to them when their turn came to rise to the surface of my
sea of noise.
Despite complaints about it by some, I have never seen the need to split on
160 M as long as the stations I call continue to respond promptly and roger the
exchange with apparent ease. The band is too small in my opinion for me to
gobble up a lot of spectrum unnecessarily.
As for splits in contests, I will not work more than a small unannounced
split of less than 1kHz in a CW contest on any busy band, much less 160 M.
However, anyone who does not call me just a bit off frequency during a contest
pileup on the bands 80 to 10 meters is not using good sense. If you are zero
beat with everyone else, I am not going to copy you. It seems a lot of folks
have yet to figure that out! On 160 M, however, in my case it usually doesn't
make much difference if everyone is zero beat with everyone else since I
usually hear only one signal at a time.
A pointer - if you call me on 160 M and I am struggling to piece together
your call sign in the noise, please wait until I get the full call right before
you send a report. I lost one station last night who was extremely difficult
to copy in the noise. I probably would have completed the contact had he not
given me his call once or twice followed by repeated RSTs every time I sent a
partial and "?". He faded back into the noise before I could piece together
the complete call sign. Had he concentrated on getting the call sign across to
me first, I'm sure he would be in my log now. Save the RST report until I get
your call right. I can usually copy RST's more easily in the noise than I can
copy call signs.
FYI, I have begun uploading my logs to the LoTW about once a month.
Happy Top Band DX'ing in 2006!
73,
Charles Lewis - S9SS
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