Derek Wills, AA5BT, writes:
>Nobody needs more than 100 watts in order to
>work any part of the globe.
When applied to conditions of favorable propagation,
Derek's statement is correct.
But, much of the fun of
HF lies in seeing what can be done under adverse or
atypical conditions. Examples might include backscatter,
forward scatter, or sidescatter circuits on any band;
weak-circuit conditions on the higher HF bands; or
high-atmospheric-noise conditions on the lower bands.
In many of these situations, even 1500 W will not do
the job.
Thus, I dissent from Derek's opinion that head-to-head
competition is the only thing that makes it necessary
or desirable to run more than 100 W.
73 de Bob, K0KR
>From oo7@astro.as.utexas.edu (Derek Wills) Sat Jun 25 20:23:17 1994
From: oo7@astro.as.utexas.edu (Derek Wills) (Derek Wills)
Subject: amplifiers
Message-ID: <9406251923.AA10835@astro.as.utexas.edu>
But, much of the fun of HF lies in seeing what can be done under
adverse or atypical conditions. Examples might include backscatter,
forward scatter, or sidescatter circuits on any band; weak-circuit
conditions on the higher HF bands; or high-atmospheric-noise conditions
on the lower bands. In many of these situations, even 1500 W will not
do the job.
Thus, I dissent from Derek's opinion that head-to-head competition is
the only thing that makes it necessary or desirable to run more than
100 W. 73 de Bob, K0KR
So that means we ought to lobby for a 10 KW limit? Or maybe 100 KW in
really adverse conditions? I recognize the argument, but to me it's
a little like saying that hams should be allowed to put up 100 ft towers
in their back yards because of all the good emergency work a small fraction
of us do (does?). We see this argument all the time, and we keep quiet
about it, but very few of the people who want 100 ft towers want them for
that reason.
If everyone were limited to 100 watts all the time, contests would be just
as cut-throat. I'm not really agreeing with the QST letter author, but I
see his point. If a dedicated contester wanted to counter the argument,
it might be better to say that contesters have good antenna systems, that
is why they are loud, and the smaller guns should improve their antennas
as well. Hmmmm, maybe.
Derek AA5BT, G3NMX
oo7@astro.as.utexas.edu
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