It still boils down to location and propagation.
Nobody is King all the time and some hams have real jobs that keep them away
during some important openings.
Charlie had a very modest and average location and was near the top of DXCC
even before he put up a yagi. Maybe one of those places rumored to exist
where the magic lines of force happens.
Dean, as N6BV/1, also modeled my QTH for the original TA program that was
part of the K6STI AO/YO package. You might want to check it out. I make no
particular claims but contest results during the stations active days as
well as the ease I worked DX on any band support Deans analysis. He started
the program to see why I consistently beat him during the many times our
paths crossed. He was on another hilltop about 15 miles away and we were
LOS.
I felt it was my homebrew stacked monobanders versus his 4 high stack of
TH-7's but he showed it was the location.
Contesting became boring and the stacks were scaled down to single antennas
and I get on when I feel like it and no longer driven.
BTW, I worked W3CRA Thursday on 40M AM, it is now the Collins Radio
Association often on daily with W3ST operating.
Carl
KM1H
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Tippett" <btippett@alum.mit.edu>
To: <topband@contesting.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 27, 2013 6:23 AM
Subject: Re: Topband: 160M Rhombics
W0BTU:
> For whatever reason, there's what seems to be a lot of hype about W6AM's
rhombics. Such as:
"The W6AM station was legendary around the world. Don could beat you in a
pileup for some obscure African station no matter what band, and even if
you were on the east coast. And him in Southern California.
"Don was #1 on ARRL's DXCC Honor Roll, and you didn't argue. No matter
where you were, no matter what you were running, Don had beaten you in a
pileup. More than once."
> Beat anyone on the east coast to Europe from California every time? I'm
sorry, but a rhombic is just not that good, even if you DO have one
pointed
at every direction of the compass as W6AM did.
Absolutely "a lot hype", as you stated. The real King of the Hill
in those days was Frank Lucas W3CRA:
Gus Browning, W4BPD wrote (from Ahoy Aldabra! article in February 1964 CQ
Magazine):
"After staying up for the long path opening to the U. S. which was 4:00 AM
local time, I intended sleeping on a small bunk at the rear of the boat.
After lying down for a while and wondering about the 5-9 plus 20 db signal
that signs W3CRA when all the others on the band are S7, I came to the
conclusion that Frank must have the world's best QTH. When the band is
dead he's always S7 and when the W-boys are S7 Frank is always over S9.
This just isn't once in a while, it's an every day occurrence."
Frank did this with a single 3 element homebrew Yagi but his secret was
location, location, location; as this webpage explains.
http://users.vnet.net/btippett/w3cra.htm
W6AM at the top of the Honor Roll? More hype. Charlie Mellen W1FH in
Boston ran a simple 3 element Yagi and had 311/337 (current/cumulative
including deleted) when W6AM was at 307/332 in November 1964. Here's the
*complete* DXCC Honor Roll listing:
http://users.vnet.net/btippett/dxcc_honor_roll.htm
W6AM may have closed the gap for current entitiess in later years but W1FH
was one of very few to work W6ODD/CR8 from Damao/Diu in 1948, which W6AM
missed. W1FH was the first post-war DXCC holder and W3CRA was the first
pre-war DXCC holder. Frank apparently quit submitting cards for the
post-war award but he was very much King of the Hill signal-wise as W4BPD
verified above.
http://oldqslcards.com/W1FH.pdf
http://hamgallery.com/qsl/deleted/Damao_Diu/w6odd.htm
Just to keep this from being totally off-topic, note the many Topband
DXers at the bottom of the DXCC page above.
73, Bill W4ZV
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