Hello Roger
The CQ 160 SSB Contest was difficult as I was not very interested in
working USA stations just east of the Mississippi River. DX stations
were all under a few layers of US stations calling CQ, and they did not
appreciate other calls for stations on THEIR frequency. I did a bit of
listening and I heard a lot of signals but not much from across the
pond. I worked seven EU stations and heard numerous others when they
answered other USA stations. Then there were those that did not even
know I was calling them. Most fell in that category as the QRM in EU
must have been much worse than here in New England.
Friday evening was the worst. Shortly after the start, I heard several
EU stations in there, but as the night wore on they disappeared.
Saturday was better and all of my Qs occurred then. I worked no Europe
on Friday. Some signals on Saturday were quite good approaching or
clearing the S-9 mark. That had little bearing on whether they would
hear me. Some of my easiest contacts were with the weaker stations.
HG8DX was very difficult, and they were quite loud on QSB peaks. I had
three distinct sessions before they got my call! In did not try around
my sun rise time at all. I like CW much better than SSB! I think I
worked a total of 26 stations all weekend.
Dave K1WHS
On 3/1/2021 6:00 AM, Roger Kennedy wrote:
Regarding mentioning Callsigns of stations on here during Contests, it's not
something I would normally do. However, I hadn't really considered it a
problem, firstly because I'm not interested in entering . . . but mainly
because lots of stations are posted on the DX Cluster anyway - not just
their Callsigns, but their exact frequency too!
I think the fact that it's so easy for people to cheat these days is one of
the reasons I'm not interested in entering Contests . . . I just use them as
an opportunity to work lots of DX stations on Top Band that sadly don't
normally come on the band.
But coming back to Conditions . . . I couldn't copy a single NA station on
Saturday night either.
I also then realised that even the Europeans were way down on normal . . .
Big signals from Germany, the Baltic States, etc, are normally peaking 40dB
over S9 with me . . . but nobody was over +20dB ! That really is a LONG way
down.
Shame that propagation was so poor.
Roger G3YRO
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