Rune has kindly spoken up, making some of this discussion moot but I will
continue anyway.
I appreciate everyone's comments. With respect to Jim's concerns about QRM I
have thought about that, but did not mention it earlier.
I use DX Atlas, in fact I have presented about the program to my DX club and
used 3Y has an example of using the program for planning. (If you don't use it,
you really should.)
DX Atlas shows that the optimum time for me is about 4:00 UTC. Whether or not 3Y
is on at that time is conjecture, but for planning, you have to start
somewhere. Looking at that time, most of the world's hams are in darkness. Of
biggest concern, QRM wise is EU. Using France as a proxy, the path is 0 deg
azimuth and about 7,000 miles, the path to me is 270 degrees and 9,000 miles.
EU has about 9 hours of common darkness, S. AZ has about 3. One can only hope
for selective calling.
I may speak more about RX antennas in another message.
Wes N7WS
On 12/23/2022 9:34 PM, Jim Brown wrote:
On 12/23/2022 8:12 PM, n4is@comcast.net wrote:
I missed the second question.
I understand Wes's point quite well. I have friends who operate 6M from very
remote places where there is no local noise to light up rare grids. They're
rare because no one lives there to create noise.
The vast majority of active hams are surrounded by a LOT of noise generated by
electronics in their own homes and those of their neighbors, as well from
power lines, street lighting, and other sources. WE are the ones who most need
serious RX antennas (and also to devote our energies to killing as much as
possible of our noise at the source).
The difference in local noise between what WE hear and what the DX hears can
easily be 20 dB.
What Wes may be missing is that the DX may be hearing stations from multiple
directions, callers from areas with easy prop to them may be MUCH stronger
than callers from areas that must be worked under exactly the right conditions
and for rather short time windows, and that those loud callers may have a
tendency to not stop calling. :) THAT'S where serious RX antennas can help at
the DX location.
And as both Wes and I have observed, great system engineering involves
devising systems to solve specific problems. One size never fits all.
73, Jim K9YC
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