Keyboard In The Wilderness wrote:

When you work an exceptionally weak DX station, do u use ESP?
Is that Extra Sensory Perception or Expected Sensory Perception ??

What?

Is the best filter between your ears ??

Yes. *After* you pass the signal through the 250-500 Hz second IF
crystal filter.

Can u really copy CW right down into the noise -- if so why??

Because of the extremely narrow bandwidth of the signal. The lower the
information rate, the easier the copying. That's why CW gets through
where speech can't - speech requires more bandwidth due to the higher
information rate. Explained differently, CW transmits all the TX power
on one frequency, while SSB or AM disperses that same amount of power
throughout the entire bandwidth of the signal.

Have you ever copied SSB right down into the noise ?? If not why not ??

Everything can be "copied right down into the noise". It depends on what
your definition of "right down into the noise" is.

Do you listen to DX on a Speaker.

No. Waste of time.

Are headphones better ???

Always.

Which ones -- Com Phones or Hi-Fi

The cheaper, the better. You definitely don't want hi-fi headphones
because they only contribute to the sound in the range outside of the
transmitted speech, i.e. above 3 kHz, which translates into noise.

Do you keep the RF Gain at Max?

Normally, yes.

Or advance the audio gain, then bring up the RF Gain control for APPARENT
improved S/N ratio. Huh how does that work??

Depends on the signal that you're trying to copy, as well as on the
surrounding QRM and QRN.

Do you use fast AGC or Slow when DXing --- Why ???

Neither. AGC is a dynamic compression which compresses all the signals
into a much narrower dynamic audio range. That's great for strong
signals and easy on the ears, but it completely obliterates the weak
ones by "pumping" strong signals, QRM and QRN. You need to turn off AGC
for dxing (and most of contesting), unless you only want to work strong
signals. The drawback is that the full dynamic range is very hard on the
ears because you get a full blast of S9+ signals interspersed with the
barely audible ones.

73 .... WA7AA




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