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1-10 of 22 messages
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FINALLY(!) Another Cycle 24 Spot!
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by AF3Y on May 4, 2008
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I know its going to be a while before 24 starts to kick in and give us what we are all waiting for, but since there has not been a post on the group since last month, I assume most of you have had the results on chasing DX that I have had... Zilch... NADA.
SO - the appearance of just one Cycle 24 spot at least cheers me up a little. (Now, lets have some MORE!!) 73, Gene
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RE: FINALLY(!) Another Cycle 24 Spot!
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by AB3CX on May 4, 2008
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Part of this is that there is nothing interesting out there, at least DX-pedition wise. There was a good night at my QTH this past week on 40 meters, heard 4x4, 3B8 and lots of EU, but otherwise it certainly has been pretty flat.
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RE: FINALLY(!) Another Cycle 24 Spot!
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by W2IRT on May 4, 2008
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You're right on the lack-of-DXpeditions happening right now, that's for sure. Don't worry, there's some good stuff coming soon - Timor Leste (4W), Bhutan (A5) and Marion Island (ZS8). There are also some nice 20m Asian openings most mornings between 8 and 11 Eastern-time, which should continue for at least another four to six weeks.
I don't usually like to re-work rare stations I already have on a given band-mode but just for fun I worked East Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia with just one or two calls last Thursday morning. No pileups and decent signals to my Force 12 C31XR tribander at 72' using just under legal-limit power (1300W). I tried barefoot to the V8 and 9M6 but no-go. Once the amp kicked in they were both easy to work.
Face it. The bottom of the cycle is when the amp and aluminum-in-the-air really help. G5RVs at 30' and 100W aren't going to get the rare distant ones in your log. There IS propagation on 17, 20, 30 and 40. You just need to be there when the paths are open...and of course, the DX stations needs to be on as well!
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RE: FINALLY(!) Another Cycle 24 Spot!
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by WW5AA on May 5, 2008
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Rats..another nasty old sunspot. Pretty soon I'll have to start shooting fish in a barrel on the higher bands. (:-)
73 de Lindy
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RE: FINALLY(!) Another Cycle 24 Spot!
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by WW5AA on May 5, 2008
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Rats..another nasty old sunspot. Pretty soon I'll have to start shooting fish in a barrel on the higher bands. (:-)
73 de Lindy
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RE: FINALLY(!) Another Cycle 24 Spot!
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by AA8CH on May 7, 2008
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G5RVs at 30' and 100W aren't going to get the rare distant ones in your log
not when the guys with the aluminum and amps are in every pileup for every station just for fun.
sometimes the little guys can hear the DX but can't get through because of the show offs making duplicate contacts (like so many did for BS7H). is that what DXing is all about? bragging here or on the cluster? if that's how you feel then you are not a true DXer plain and simple
telling me to get a better station, or make a friend with a big station is a standard response but it misses the point completely.
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RE: FINALLY(!) Another Cycle 24 Spot!
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by AF3Y on May 7, 2008
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"telling me to get a better station, or make a friend with a big station is a standard response but it misses the point completely."
What would you like us to tell you?
Most of the people with the Big Gun stations worked and paid for them. Probably a lot of them worked pretty darn hard to build them and pay for them. Many of them moved their QTH so they could have the towers and tons of aluminum. Some probably even divorced their spouse so they could have a big gun station, although I hope not! I am not sure why big stations bother you so much. They have as much right to work a station that is already in their log as any of us. Most of them make their QSO with the DX and are on their merry way.
By the way, I would certainly not call my station a big gun by any means, but I work lots of DX. Started DX almost exactly 2 years ago, and even in the bottom of the cycle, I have 213 worked and 193 confirmed. NO, I dont get every rare station, and I get very few on the first call, or even second or third call. But, I have not given up and turned the rig off when it was a station I needed. And, if not today, perhaps next time.
I personally dont have a problem with guys who have invested many thousands of dollars working stations that they have worked before. That is just the way it is. Some guys drive new Corvettes, some of us drive old pickup trucks. I wont tell you to get a bigger station, etc. but if you are looking for sympathy, I seriously doubt you will find it here. Gene AF3Y
P.S. There are a lot of QRP stations working a LOT of DX too.
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RE: FINALLY(!) Another Cycle 24 Spot!
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by N3OX on May 7, 2008
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"telling me to get a better station, or make a friend with a big station is a standard response but it misses the point completely."
Can I tell you to be a better DXer? No, just messing with you ;-)
But I gotta say this:
My experience over the years in the trenches at 100W with decent but modest antennas (the biggest gain I ever had was an A3S at 30') suggest that "chance-stealing" is largely a myth. The only stations I really can't work given enough persistence are those who can't actually hear me even in the clear. I can beat big guns in pileups, and so can you.
I can almost always find a hole. A CW or SSB pileup into a decent, non-overloaded reciever is more-or-less a linear superposition of signals... there's no capture effect like on FM... you can probably actually hear my signal *through* the signal of my 15dB stronger neighbor. You can't hear my 100W signal through a monster pileup of kilowatts near me or who have better propagation than I do, but that's largely because even the finely tuned DX brain can't simultaneously decode 40 calls at once, certainly not one that's 15dB below the average mess.
But if my kilowatt competition and I both break in the same direction and find the same pileup hole, the DX can probably hear *both* of us if they can hear me at all... My U.S.A. competition will rarely be loud enough to shut me out entirely (though they may be picked up first because they're easier) So I really think that your chances against any single big-gun are actually pretty good. If you pay some attention into not letting too much *LOSS* slip in to your station, you'll be maybe 20dB down from your stiffest local competition, but if you go listen around the band for, say, a S4 and an S8 signal on nearly the same frequency calling at the same time, do you find that one of them actually totally blocks the other one, especially if it's CW and they're a dozen hertz apart?
However, if you're too weak to get over the DX station's noise floor, you're sunk. The natural noise floor doesn't have relatively clear holes in it that you can sneak through. This is the case where you have to be LOUDER or you don't get through. Again, it's an intelligibility thing... you buried 10dB deep in uniform white noise or a raucous pileup makes you unintelligible. You calling along with ONE signal who's 10dB louder than you does NOT make you unintelligible.
It doesn't matter if you're the lone station to find the DX if you don't crest their noise floor. It's happened to me, mostly with over the pole stuff... I caught a quite-weak but readable YB1A on 17m one night (last summer?). I had a 2 element homebrew Moxon @ 30ft pointed at him and 100W. I called him five or six times, and every single time he CQed in my face.
So, in both a theoretical and empirical sense, I think the "chance-stealing big gun" is largely an imaginary villain of the 100W + simple antennas DXer. Propagation, raw signal to noise on the RX end, and skills are bigger factors... and there's one other thing. Believe you can get through. Fuming at the big guns is not productive, but learning to beat them in the pileups is both directly productive and satisfying when you're frustrated :-)
If it were actually true that I had to wait for the kilowatts to get out of the way before I worked DX, I wouldn't have worked 3Y0X or VU7RG or VP6DX on the first day of ops. I wouldn't have worked KP5/ at all. I've got better antennas now, but 3Y0X and KP5/ were worked on an antenna that was pretty much a 30 foot high G5RV (with improved WARC band losses)
And as far as BS7H... well, I can't be sure of this but I bet that I wouldn't have had a real chance even if I were the only station calling them at the time. I bet they would have CQed in my face.
73,
Dan
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