Bill I agree But
The original poster sed:

"My very first contacts were established with 2 land stations on 14300 at
100W that were about 1000 miles away. They both reported that my signal
was good and that it sounded like I was "sitting right next to them". I
have no idea if this was a good distance, great, or mediocre."

So I assume he was after contacts of several hundred (thousand) miles - not
ground wave.

My point was this for the 160M band (From a book on propagation)

"160 meters. Daytime conditions for this band suffer from extreme D-layer
absorption, reducing the amount of signal to levels far below the noise
floor of our receivers. This limits daytime coverage to essentially
ground-wave coverage. At night, the D layer dissipates rapidly and worldwide
160-meter communication becomes possible via the F2-layer and in ducts in
the electron density valley above the E region peak. Depending on the
propagation mode, high or low elevation angles may be required. A limiting
factor is the noise levels prevalent at these frequencies, both atmospheric
and man-made as well as tropical and mid-latitude thunderstorms which cause
high levels of static in the summer season. Winter conditions are much
better, making winter evenings the best time to work 160-meter DX.

So you might have ground wave on 160M during the day to 100 miles or so.

See URL for details and formulas on ground wave distances
http://www.qsl.net/g3cwi/Downloads/Propagation%201.doc


As I sed --- way too much on propagation to put on a post and cover all the
variables and details -- the original poster needs to get a good book or at
least look at this free URL
http://www.ae4rv.com/tn/propflash.htm

And of course -- "on 10 meters at the
bottom of the sunspot cycle 10 is open nearly every day to
somewhere."

Sure -- ground wave and perhaps sporadic-E

--
The Anon Keyboard
I doubt, therefore I might be



"Bill Turner" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 13:01:47 -0800, "Keyboard In The Wilderness"
wrote:

On 160M in the day time in the summer with low power -- you ain't going
anywhere

__________________________________________________ _______

This is true but not for the reason you might think. 160 meters has
excellent groundwave propagation; better than any other amateur band in
fact, but the lack of stations is the real reason 160 is mostly dead in
the daytime. It's a self fulfilling prophecy - nobody is on, so I'm not
going to get on either. The same thing happens on 10 meters at the
bottom of the sunspot cycle even though 10 is open nearly every day to
somewhere.

--
Bill W6WRT