Re: Topband: Timor Leste report #8
Dietmar, Like many others in the eastern part of the USA I have been trying to work you on 160m CW before and after my sunrise (1238Z now). Today (24Nov) was the first time your signal was actually Q5 for me, but you could not hear the large pileup calling you. I expect a QSO will be impossible during the contest weekend, but my question for you is are you going to try 160m CW again after the contest or not? 73 und Danke Sehr, Walt, AJ6T (EM66 Tennessee) On 11/23/2023 3:24 PM, Dietmar Kasper wrote: GM topbanders started at 10:00 not to miss KP4AA again but no luck. ZL and JA skimmer with low values and not reported from US. After 13:00 band opened a little to the southern US with one TX and 2x CA. Nothing from the north. WA7LNW showed good signal strength at his sunrise but no QSOs. We still have lot of thunderstorm crashes makes it hard to hear anybody. Signals below s5 are down in the noise undetectable. One hour before sunrise band opened to southern Europe - first time - with first YOs and some 9A, S5, SV, E7 before OH, SM and SP.Later some Ukraine but no LZ. Before sunrise peak signals became weak and disappeared. At sunrise some weak ON, F, G and GM were able to work and soon the band faded away. Good to have been here at the right time after low hours during the night. We will continue to be QRV in CQWW in M/M category, also on 160m with changing operators. For EU we may transmit below 1810 with split up to avoid QRM. 73 DXX _ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector _ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
Re: Topband: Timor Leste report #8
Hi Dietmar Was able to make a CW contact with ZL1AZ at his SS, 0715 UTC Thursday. I am in Northern New Jersey so an 8900 mile 2 way QSO to New Zealand. The propagation is there. Just need to get thru the noise (basically). I have a strong bias toward CW and only resort to FT8 when the DX station makes that the mode. The DX station controls the modes used for contacts so I only use FT8 when the DX contact leaves no other options. I only run 100 watts to a short inverted L now on 160 but will be in better shape with 1 KW and better antenna in the future as I see the band can be worked for much DX on CW with the right setup. Thanks for your efforts. Paul - W2NMI On 11/22/2023 4:43 PM, Dietmar Kasper wrote: GM topbanders propagation was not good. No US on CW but terrible crashes from thunderstorms between Singapore and Tarawa. The complete north was a thunderstorm, just see https://www.accuweather.com/en/tl/national/weather-radar Took my free time what actually was adicted to sleep to improve US beverage. It was extended in length and converted into a two wire beverage also to cover backside to Indian Ocean. Had to pay the price for extra sunshine and had to take some sleep in the evening, so missed the US time. As soon as I was away the station was hijacked by the FT-lovers to play their computer games. Spots show that computer cannot work US better as humans during thunderstorm crashes, so most contacts were loud JAs and US stations we already worked in CW. I feel like the last person on earth fighting for the CW mode on topband. However FT lovers were not seen when it came to put out the beverages, look for the noise source near the property or to reconstruct the beverages far away during hours and hours of hard labour. Originally it was planned to have another 160m antenna on second location but nobody wanted to do the work - is is so much easier to take over a good working CW station when the lonely after many nights tired person is away for a while. Band was closed most parts of the night but a few loud JAs (mostly dupes) called in. At sunrise we had a short opening starting with G4AMT followed by I3, ON, EI, DL, HB9 and then the sun was up and the band was dead again. These are the moments I like so much to do the real top band DX what you can hear and feel - and good to know lot of the person behind the call. Artificial intelligence just clicks the contact and goes ahead - obviously our future :-) OK - lets bring this DXpedition to an end and this will be my last entry in this group or in any other group mostly addicted to the FT modes. 73 Dietmar DL3DXX _ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector _ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
Re: Topband: Timor Leste report #8
Interestingly, conditions on the west coast seemed pretty good this morning around our sunrise. I was able to decode HS5NMF between -8 and -5 and 9M6NA got as high as +1. I suspect both could have been heard reasonably well on CW. OTOH, the QRN level on their end might have precluded 2-way contacts. Thank you for your efforts to keep CW alive on Topband, Dietmar. I do operate FT8. It does seem to make contacts possible that would not be possible on CW (all other things being equal), but I don't find it nearly as satisfying as a good CW contact. 73, Mike W4EF.. On 11/22/2023 1:43 PM, Dietmar Kasper wrote: GM topbanders propagation was not good. No US on CW but terrible crashes from thunderstorms between Singapore and Tarawa. The complete north was a thunderstorm, just see https://www.accuweather.com/en/tl/national/weather-radar Took my free time what actually was adicted to sleep to improve US beverage. It was extended in length and converted into a two wire beverage also to cover backside to Indian Ocean. Had to pay the price for extra sunshine and had to take some sleep in the evening, so missed the US time. As soon as I was away the station was hijacked by the FT-lovers to play their computer games. Spots show that computer cannot work US better as humans during thunderstorm crashes, so most contacts were loud JAs and US stations we already worked in CW. I feel like the last person on earth fighting for the CW mode on topband. However FT lovers were not seen when it came to put out the beverages, look for the noise source near the property or to reconstruct the beverages far away during hours and hours of hard labour. Originally it was planned to have another 160m antenna on second location but nobody wanted to do the work - is is so much easier to take over a good working CW station when the lonely after many nights tired person is away for a while. Band was closed most parts of the night but a few loud JAs (mostly dupes) called in. At sunrise we had a short opening starting with G4AMT followed by I3, ON, EI, DL, HB9 and then the sun was up and the band was dead again. These are the moments I like so much to do the real top band DX what you can hear and feel - and good to know lot of the person behind the call. Artificial intelligence just clicks the contact and goes ahead - obviously our future :-) OK - lets bring this DXpedition to an end and this will be my last entry in this group or in any other group mostly addicted to the FT modes. 73 Dietmar DL3DXX _ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector _ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
Re: Topband: Timor Leste report #8
On 11/22/2023 1:43 PM, Dietmar Kasper wrote: As soon as I was away the station was hijacked by the FT-lovers to play their computer games. It is long past time for us to grow past prejudices and learn to use new techniques. This all reminds me of the fighting against the adoption of that crazy new mode called SSB! I have been primarily a CW op all of my life, 67 years so far in ham radio. FT-modes are weak signal modes -- the digital encoding provides about 10 dB advantage over CW with great operators on both ends. They fight against the major enemy of our QSOs, noise of all sorts. Just as CW offers an advantage of about 10 dB over SSB. This is a VERY big deal, because man-made electrical noise has increased by 20 dB in the last two decades. All of these modes use radios, antennas, and propagation through the ionosphere. The operators still most build all of that stuff, do it well, understand all of it, and study propagation so that they know when to operate. George Wallner, AA7JV, one of the smartest guys doing DXpeditions in the last 20 years, studied the logs from many of his activations, and found that nearly all of the most difficult QSOs occurred during one or two nights of a 2-3 week expedition. George realized the advantage of FT8, and developed a system to diplex both CW and FT8 transmitters into the same TX antenna, and narrow bandpass filters for RX antennas. 73, Jim K9YC _ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
