"No, you need not say more. You are as clueless as the guy you quoted!!!"

Don't just bash and run!

O Clueful One, please shed your wisdom as to why CQ DX is often answered by stations 2 states over. Did you notice that I used the word "perhaps" in tendering a possible explanation. I was never a CBer.

I think my CB explanation is the most charitable one for the offenders. Otherwise I'm back to considering cognition morbidity as the likely basis.

Worth reading again:

"He said the key to winning contests was to attract non-contesters and he felt that the best way to do that was to make it sound like you were having so much fun that they couldn't resist wanting to participate. Great contest psychology."

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Good advice.

The big guns work almost all the other big guns. Winners in DX tests are determined by who snags the most Euro mobiles and Japanese apartment dwellers, plus Canadian ragchew types on the low bands during broad daylight.

When casually operating, I've handed out Qs to guys only because they've sounded friendly and I've ignored stations who came off as frequency-hog jerks. While everyone uses "59 or 599." I suppose a US station can attract a few more Qs by giving some real indication of his contact's signal strength. Fun to hear a DX station say,  "K0OD 59... nice signal."

I also tend to work stations who sound dazzlingly competent at contesting!  

"Kinda strange as they were working on 7.0124 with a 12 kHz split"

Happened to flip on my radio around 0900 this morning and they were begging for Qs around that same frequency listening "up 11."  Very odd split. They didn't need any split. I worked them on one call barefoot into a vertical. They were about 569 in Missouri.

I used to extensively monitor the Russian Morse code V-beacon near Tashkent years ago when it could be heard short path in our evening and long path in the morning on 7.002 mHz.

I still have tapes of it sending its very rare ID on CW (it had a call believe it or not, RCQ45)

I used to listen to the many other Russina single letter beacons on 40, mostly around 7039. My goal was to DF them using my 4-square and also by using grayline maps. I exchanged emails with hams who were much closer to them.  

I never heard any brief pronounced peak at precisely SR or SS on RCQ45, a beacon that probably used an omnidirectional antenna.

Note too, low band contester N4KG's thoughts on 40 meter grayline, and what he calls SR/SS Enhancement (THAT I can buy)
http://www.ng3k.com/Misc/n4kgprop.html

"Some say CW is dead, but we say, "NO WAY!"."

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That makes CW sound like it's some kind of charity case. "Save The Mode Foundation " Can envision Jerry Lewis or Sally Struthers pleading its case

Whoever said CW is dead hasn't tuned during a recent major contest, I worked exactly 100 different countries from a Missouri suburb during the last CQWW CW with 100 watts and a ground mounted 43' vertical from DX Engineering.

20 and 40 were so crowded that some of the juiciest CW DX was more than 120 kHz up from the band's bottom.

New CW ops, especially those with very limited stations, will love 40 CW if they fire up in a major DX contest around midnight local time when stateside competition decreases. If your station really stinks operate on the second night when the DX is begging for Qs.

I once waited an hour or two while the whole East Coast worked an S79 on 75 Meters. I couldn't hear a whiff of him. But at the exact minute shown by many sources as "sunset" he emerged from the noise just enough to give me and a few locals a new country. I suppose that was grayline. But 80 and 160 require the whole path to be in something close to darkness.

I've never heard anything as dramatic on 40. I have almost every country worked on 40 and have a wall full of 40 meter contest certificates from the 90s when I had a 4-square. (a great antenna for analyzing propagation with its instant rotation). Naturally anyone who contests aggressively on the low bands is active around sunrise and sunset.

What Sunrise/Sunset definition does one use if the goal is to peg grayline to an exact minute? Articles that I've seen are fuzzy on that.    

To me it's a little like the "Bermuda Triangle" which seems to get bigger every time there's a crash outside the previous boundaries. And believers remain faithful even though 99.99% of flights through it land safely. (another example would be the debunked Full Moon Theory of crime)

When we hear a 4S7 on 40 within a barn door width of sunset we think we're hearing grayline. When we don't hear one, that doesn't shake our belief in grayline.

I'm doubtful that a mysterious grayline phenomenon is a significant factor with 40 meter DXing, but we all know QSB is. My contest Q rates usually peak on 40 well before sunset and well after sunrise.

I'd sure like to know if anyone has researched grayline on 40. I've been pretty inactive for the past decade and may well have missed it.

I never use the phrase grey-line in reference to 40. I've never heard anything magical occur at the moment of sunset or sunrise and I've sat in many a pileup around that time.

During the November 2008 CQWW CW, 40 was solid s-9 European DX from 3 hours before our sunset to right about sunset... when conditions collapsed. (no problem as 80 and 160 had opened strongly by then). The wonderful thing was that most all-band USA stations were still on 20 and it was prime time in Europe. In other words, that was the time to make contest "hay" on 40.

If you listen to the CQWW on 40 you'll sometimes hear the big Multi-Multis calling CQ Test all day, even at high noon. They're mostly looking for Canadians. But the big New England stations can sometimes catch propagation into Western Europe.

Also, I've heard Japanese big guns on 40 coming in very weakly ALL day.

IMO the best single time to work DX on 40 is about 90 minutes BEFORE sunset. The band is often quieter then too.    

 

 

"Real DXing flourishes on 40 with almost no DX nets."

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Are there ANY American DX nets on 40? I hear nets all over that band but I'm not aware of any that focus on DX currently.

There used to be one late at night in the early 90s, around 0700z. It was often pretty comical with der net-meister using a low dipole from Kansas City, of all places. That was when most phone DX operated split. That group did entice an occasional European to listen up into our band.

Many of the newbie DXers were utterly perplexed by a net that sometimes had split frequency check-ins. I'm sure FCC monitoring stations had a ball with all the out-of-band tomfoolery

 

"That makes them either clueless or rude."

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No question that CQ DX ***once*** meant CQ DX. There was always a gray area. Did it mean Canada? Did it include a cruise ship in NY Harbor (I once heard a ham on a cruise in NY harbor running U.S. stations in the 75 meter DX window for hours).

But it never meant two states away on HF, and that's a lot of what I get.  

I'm utterly puzzled about their motivations. I guess it would be rude to demand, "what the heck is going on in your brain?"  How do they board airport flights if they can't understand simple public address instructions?

Perhaps it's because CBers consider any Q not groundwave to be "DX."  I wouldn't know, but I prefer to think the hobby isn't <<<YET>>> being ravaged by Alzheimers!

We need to grab a few of these callers and perform some cerebral autopsies on them.

 
 

Due to antenna restrictions I've worked a lot of 40 CW DX over the years where a simple vertical or high dipole can be very effective. And a phased vertical array can turn a tower-less suburbanite into a big gun.

However 40 SSB had always been the domain of the big boys. Broadcast interference and split operation meant one needed a big directional antenna there.

Even with my current feeble 43' vertical and 100 watts, I'm struck by how pleasant 40 SSB DXing has become after the removal of most of the AM broadcasters  Nice too how 40 fits into my job schedule. To Europe, the band comes alive about the time I get home. Japan, UA0s etc can be worked easily before work.

Beginners often don't know that DX is workable on 40 several hours into daylight. The long path sometimes provides treats such as Europe in the morning or Asia/Pacific in the afternoon.  

It's wonderful to hear a DX band with few of the problems of 75 and especially the nutcases on 20 meters. Real DXing flourishes on 40 with almost no DX nets.

Just putting in a plug.    

   
 

"Some large contest stations claimed that over 20% of their callers were stateside zero-pointers."

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But wouldn't it be rude for USA CQWW contest stations to dissuade stateside Qs?  

I worked the CQWW CW all band and was forced to call stateside big guns to pick up zones on 160 and 15 meters where I had few contacts. With my 43' vertical and 100 watts, snagging a West Coast zone 3 was no easy task on 160.

I'm guessing the bulk of that 20% was on 160, 15 and 10. That's just the way the CQWW rules work and it seems the big guns are very willing to hand out zone Qs on fringe bands. On core bands, VE7s provide ample Zone 3 Qs.

I *would* stop short of calling a needed USA mult if he had a good DX run going.  

"Still, there's a lot of good manners left on HF, and it's rare to hear anyone get too angry with a more local station replying to a dx call."

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I've noticed that oddity too. There's an idiot WD8 who often parks around 7135 calling CQ "Dog X-ray" for long periods. He uses a dipole and high power and gets a stateside reply about every third CQ. A few days ago he pulled in about 8 stateside stations, one from Barbados and a lone Italian over 45 minutes. What a waste of RF on the WD8's part! And not one of the stateside callers offered an excuse for calling him (new state, checking antenna etc). I think his results were fairly typical.

What stops me from being rude to stateside callers is that it is possible to mistake a CQ DX for a general call if one catches just the final seconds of the CQ.

Perhaps too the problem is the well known lack of CQing on the bands, especially 75 meters. On CW, one can always find CQs on QRP frequencies. Still, lack of CQs doesn't excuse the practice.  

   

"Good point. That's why I buy from DX Engineering"

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Me too. I've made several purchases from them lately. DX Engineering operates like a real business. I'm sure they're whomping some of the remaining mom and pops.

And yes, they have an attractive and functional website that's chock full of info.  

Among other businesses, I run a fairly successful non-ham commercial website. "Under the hood," our site is simple. But its store front is professional-looking, achieving a key chore of any commerce site... It makes us look like a reliable place to spend money.

Since the birth of the web, its been a rule that ham ecommerce sites are nearly universally ugly and amateurish in functionality. Most are a garish mixture of multicolored text and disorganized product logos and grahics. Very often copyright dates are years old, making some customers wonder whether the seller is still in business.

Ham Radio Outlet, a well regarded vendor. states they have $8 million in inventory. However their site looks like the product of a color blind teenager in 1995. Text is blue, black, red and green. Some is highlighted in yellow!
http://www.hamradio.com/

There are worse sites. One venerable Indiana ham store offers mostly dead links. Click their BBB logo and you get a "Page not found" message. That's confidence inspiring!

Tip: If your store is dwarfed by the barbershop next door, don't show a picture of it.
http://www.philshamradiostore.com/images/InitialSet/PHRS.jpg

I'm currently shopping for a $4,000 piece of equipment. In the current economy, trust will play a big role in my selection of a vendor. But it's hard to feel confident in any of the ham sites I've seen.  

Thanks, Bob. Using "phase indicator" I find all sorts of info in G. Thanks too for info re BPSK and QPSK.

I wasn't getting anywhere looking up "round PSK thingie"