On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:12:58 -0500, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
Perhaps it's just me, but does anyone else see a dcided disadvantage
to being on either coast for a contest like this during the down side
of the sunspot cycle?

I think it's largely a chance thing - if the short-skip happens to go your
way then it's best to be in the middle. (this year the Texans got the
luck. Right now 5 of the 10 top claimed scores in high-power CW are in
Texas.)

Jack VK2CJC wrote:
when the Steelers-Patriots game began.

Not being from the US, this is a phenomenon of which I am unfamiliar.

What's it all about?


A bit like a cross between Rugby and Football for girls.
They wear padding and stop for a chat every few minutes.
In the USA universities are rated on the success of their teams rather than
any academic achievement.

--
g4jci

KØHB wrote:


So who broke the 10 meter band? More so who is going to fix it and
when? (Better be someone good as the last one who worked on it didn't
do so good.......downright well..... unsatisfactory!)

I suspect most scores from this weekend may look more like the typical
number of band changes on a multi-band contest than total score.

Beep beep,

de Hans, K0HB

I Heard nothing but noise anywhere I tuned in the technician class segmen
t
(28.5 and down). no signals, not even a local calling CQ. what gives?

DE N7ZZT

In article ,
"Bryan" writes:
Jack VK2CJC wrote:
when the Steelers-Patriots game began.

Not being from the US, this is a phenomenon of which I am unfamiliar.

What's it all about?

--
Jack VK2CJC / MM0AXL
FISTS #9666 CW Ops QRP Club #753
Mid North Coast Amateur Radio Group www.mncarg.org
Skype- vk2cjc MSN Messenger- (this emails return address)

Hi Jack,

It's what we call football (played with protective padding) in the states.
I would hazard a guess that soccer or rugby (played w/o padding) is a bit
rougher.
I understand that the difference between soccer and rugby is that in soccer,
injuring your opponent is incidental to scoring while in rugby, scoring is
incidental to injuring your opponent. ;-)

73,
Bryan WA7PRC

Look at his call. Then ask him about his brand of football!!

bill
KB3YV

--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
| and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include std.disclaimer.h

In article ,
Eric Oyen - N7ZZT writes:
KØHB wrote:

So who broke the 10 meter band? More so who is going to fix it and
when? (Better be someone good as the last one who worked on it didn't
do so good.......downright well..... unsatisfactory!)

I suspect most scores from this weekend may look more like the typical
number of band changes on a multi-band contest than total score.

Beep beep,

de Hans, K0HB
I Heard nothing but noise anywhere I tuned in the technician class segmen
t
(28.5 and down). no signals, not even a local calling CQ. what gives?
DE N7ZZT

I have just set up my vertical and a couple of HF rigs after a hiatus of
more than a decade. I have not heard a single station above 40M yet.
I did hear a PA0 on 80M, good signal too.

Guess I picked the wrong time to get interested again. :-( Looking
around for antenna wire now so I can get some kind of a dipole up as I
was really never impressed with the oerformance of any of my trap verticals.
Sure wish I knew what I did with that W3DZZ Trap Dipole I started with in
Germany 30 years ago!!

bill
KB3YV

--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
| and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include std.disclaimer.h

(Bill Gunshannon) wrote in
:

I have just set up my vertical and a couple of HF rigs after a
hiatus of more than a decade. I have not heard a single station
above 40M yet. I did hear a PA0 on 80M, good signal too.

Guess I picked the wrong time to get interested again.

Not necessarily; there's nowhere to go but up as the sunspots return.

I run Faros on the PC in the shack every weekend, from Friday
afternoon 'til Sunday evening watching and waiting ...

http://www.dxatlas.com/Faros/

One of my earliest ham-radio memories is a 1961 CQ cover with the
depressing title "Cycle 19 - The Declining Years" (I was first
licensed in January 1961).

--
Bert Hyman | W0RSB | St. Paul, MN |

"Bill Gunshannon" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Eric Oyen - N7ZZT writes:
KØHB wrote:

(28.5 and down). no signals, not even a local calling CQ. what gives?
DE N7ZZT

I have just set up my vertical and a couple of HF rigs after a hiatus of
more than a decade. I have not heard a single station above 40M yet.
I did hear a PA0 on 80M, good signal too.

indeed except for some very local signals (and a bit on FD) I have not used
the bands above 20m amuch at all and each station in my personal log between
20 and 6m has been one I help set oup the station and anttena myself

In article ,
Bert Hyman writes:
(Bill Gunshannon) wrote in
:

I have just set up my vertical and a couple of HF rigs after a
hiatus of more than a decade. I have not heard a single station
above 40M yet. I did hear a PA0 on 80M, good signal too.

Guess I picked the wrong time to get interested again.

Not necessarily; there's nowhere to go but up as the sunspots return.

I run Faros on the PC in the shack every weekend, from Friday
afternoon 'til Sunday evening watching and waiting ...

http://www.dxatlas.com/Faros/

One of my earliest ham-radio memories is a 1961 CQ cover with the
depressing title "Cycle 19 - The Declining Years" (I was first
licensed in January 1961).


Well, I just went out this morning and put up a 40M dipole (best I could
come up with from the junk left over in my cellar) and it hears a lot
better than the vertical. (A quick test using CHU showed it to be at
least twice as good as the vertical. Heard some guys chatting on 20M.
Heard what sounded like some slowscan and some packet, too. Nothing
above 20M but definitely better than what I heard during SS a couple
weekends ago. Have to find a listing for beacons and start getting
into this again. I had almost forgot how much fun it could be. Maybe
my next house will even have a tower and an HF beam. :-)

Wonder whent he next RTTY contest is? That was always my favorite mode.

All the best for the holidays to everyone.

bill
KB3YV

--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
| and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include std.disclaimer.h

In article ,
Bill Gunshannon wrote:

I have just set up my vertical and a couple of HF rigs after a hiatus of
more than a decade. I have not heard a single station above 40M yet.
I did hear a PA0 on 80M, good signal too.

Guess I picked the wrong time to get interested again. :-(

As another poster said, "Not necessarily". The higher bands do open,
although less well than during a sunspot peak. Part of the problem, I
think, is that so many people are convinced that the higher bands are
dead that they don't bother to listen _or_ call CQ.

A few weeks ago I had a nice (brief but easily-copyable) PSK31 contact
on 20, from northern California to a polysyllabic city on the
Kamchatka peninsula. 35 watts and a simple horizontal dipole at 25'
on my end.

Looking
around for antenna wire now so I can get some kind of a dipole up as I
was really never impressed with the oerformance of any of my trap verticals.

Ordinary TTHN-insulated stranded wire from your local homebuilding
store works fine and isn't expensive. No need to get fancy, unless of
course you _want_ to get fancy :-)

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

Bill Gunshannon wrote:
Bert Hyman writes:
Bill Gunshannon wrote: in

I have just set up my vertical and a couple of HF rigs after a
hiatus of more than a decade. I have not heard a single station
above 40M yet. I did hear a PA0 on 80M, good signal too.

Guess I picked the wrong time to get interested again.

Not necessarily; there's nowhere to go but up as the sunspots return.

I run Faros on the PC in the shack every weekend, from Friday
afternoon 'til Sunday evening watching and waiting ...

http://www.dxatlas.com/Faros/

One of my earliest ham-radio memories is a 1961 CQ cover with the
depressing title "Cycle 19 - The Declining Years" (I was first
licensed in January 1961).


Well, I just went out this morning and put up a 40M dipole (best I could
come up with from the junk left over in my cellar) and it hears a lot
better than the vertical. (A quick test using CHU showed it to be at
least twice as good as the vertical. Heard some guys chatting on 20M.
Heard what sounded like some slowscan and some packet, too. Nothing
above 20M but definitely better than what I heard during SS a couple
weekends ago. Have to find a listing for beacons and start getting
into this again. I had almost forgot how much fun it could be. Maybe
my next house will even have a tower and an HF beam. :-)

Wonder whent he next RTTY contest is? That was always my favorite mode.

All the best for the holidays to everyone.

bill
KB3YV

The nice thing about a full 40m lambda/2 dipole is that it'll accept power
on 15m as well. While 15 has been mostly dead, there have been times when
there's activity. I don't have anything for 10m (yet) so I can't give my
personal impression, though some hams have reported short openings. 40 & 80
have been pretty hot... worked China on 40 in the WWDX CW contest... heard a
G3 working a pileup on 80m CW a few nights ago. I'm on the left coast and
have just low dipoles for those bands (80m is a 4-wire cage inverted vee).
Bryan WA7PRC