Your experience, Tree, was exactly what I saw, sans the fact I was QRP Hi Hi
I worked one AR, two IAs and one IL - that was the extent of my "breaking through to the east side of the U.S. Had 57 Qs in two hours QRP - if I heard a west coast station, I worked 'em - a couple of OKs and a KS or two in the log...heard many TX stations but...called and called but no joy! Best of luck in the Stew - I'm lookin' forward to that event as my peanut whistle will be worth more points, hi hi. 72, Jim Rodenkirch, K9JWV > From: [email protected] > Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2011 10:46:47 -0800 > To: [email protected] > Subject: Topband: K7RAT QRP Experience in ARRL 160 > > I went into this contesting thinking the QRP record for Oregon would > be easy to break with 10 hours or so of effort. WRONG!! While > conditions sounded good before sunset - conditions seemed really poor > to many areas of the country. I never did manage to work Texas, or > much of anything on the east coast. > > About half of my QSOs were made CQing and having west coast guys > answer me. I would find a "clear" frequency, which was likely > something a strong European was using (which we could not hear at all > out west). Occasionally, I would hear someone call and work whomever > it was I couldn't hear. > > There was one case where W8JI called me. This was during a time that > NOBODY was calling me. I think I CQ'd for 20 minutes and he was the > only guy who called. I was pretty certain he must had been calling > someone else - and I sent him a "?" - but he came back and signed his > call again. I sent a report - and was hoping they would send my call > to remove any doubt about what was going on - however, all they did > was send 5NN GA. > > Now - if I had been running other stations on the east coast - I > probably wouldn't have wondered about this - but since nobody else was > hearing me - I was stunned that they could hear me. I eventually > found their CQ frequency and worked them again. > > This brings up a point - there are a lot of times on 160 where it is > very useful for the search and pounce station to send the callsign of > the CQing station - so the CQing station knows for sure who is being > worked. The discussion of off frequency stations also highlighted > this need - as that prevents someone from "working" and unintended > station if their frequency is slightly off. > > Many people have adopted this operatating practice - and if you are > someone like W8JI who can do "impossible" things - it might be good to > do it more often. > > Tree N6TR > _______________________________________________ > UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK _______________________________________________ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
