Dear reflectees !
With great astonishment I hear about the complaints of some "not being heard
in EU" - stations, mainly from the western part of the US.
It happens again in all 160m contest situations, and by now I thought things
were clear.
Its nothing You need a degree in Geophysics for to understand.
Everyone knows that the density of stations in the US is bigger in the east
than in the west. The density of stations in Europe is even bigger than the
east coast`s density. That means first, that we have more layers of stations
on top of each other, plus these stations have stronger signals with each
other due to shorter distances between them.
That creates a difficult RF-environment in itself.
In the first 50kcs of the band in EU, it is not uncommon to have an S9 plus
20 db floor on a TX antenna, with a few peaks reaching up 50 db over.
Now, not everybody in EU has a K3 and a sophisticated system of beverages to
get receive directivity and attenuation of high angle signals at the same
time. Some of the complaining hams seem to believe in this.
Stations out west in the US have the bonus of very few stations in their
state on 160 and therefore have an easier receiving situation on the
average. That explains why all the complaints come mainly from the western
part of the US. If the left coast had the same contest noise floor as the
EU-stns, we`d get no complaints from them at all.
One needs to contest on a band with virtually no "dead zone" in Europe, to
grasp the rx-difficulties over here. "Frequency fights" and deliberate
jamming are a common thing, due to the small band in comparison to the
number of contestants. These things naturally go unnoticed to a far away DX
stn, trying to call in.
Contesting, unlike DXing, is a "contact sport" in itself and on 160 the
electromagnetic "elbows" are extremely wide.
Plus keep in mind an ol` contester`s saying :"contesting ain`t for sissies
!"
73 de wolf DF2PY
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