At 10:17 AM 05/06/2007, Dan Zimmerman N3OX wrote:
I can't believe the nerve of people who think they're entitled to a
contact with the DX just because there's a DXpedition on. It doesn't
matter that they're a poor operator, it doesn't matter that their
antenna system is garbage and they're running low power, they think
it's the DXpedition's fault.
The fact of the matter is that those of us on this coast who have
built a radio station that can be used to contact some guys running
medium power to simple verticals on some rocks 8000 miles away are the
ones who get the contact. It's a team effort, but I think the major
monster DXpeditions who can work EVERYONE in a particular geographical
area have made some people decide that everything must be that way,
even if it's technically impossible.
Dan, you hit the nail on the head. If you fancy yourself a DXer you
need a station to cash the cheques your mouth writes, first and
foremost. If all you can afford is 100W and a wire, then you're a
fair-weather DXer (solar-wise). You'll do well with sunspots, but
will struggle at this point in the cycle. That was me from 2001 until
2003, after which I added a little AL-811 amp (600W). I had an
Alpha-Delta DX-EE at about 45 feet up. 225 countries, more or less,
5B DXCC, WAZ, WAS, too. In 2004 and early 2005 it was rough, though,
and my ability to get through the piles was a lot harder. I had to
visit a better station to work the rare ones (my club's station, with
a Cushcraft X9 at 120' and a kW in the shack).
When I moved out here to New Jersey I had a choice of what I could
put up. I enjoy contesting, but I'm a DXer first and foremost. I
could have stuck up a 3 element tribander and some RG-8 and called it
a day, but I knew I wanted a real shot at BS7 or P5 if either would
ever come on again, and I wanted to be in the log first-day of any
DXpedition that came down the pike. I went with the Force-12 C31XR
and have not regretted it for a minute. 6dB over dipole on 20, 6.8
over a dipole on 15 and 7.4 over dipole on 10, 70 feet up, fed with
3/8" hardline and connected to an AL-1200 legal-limit amp and a
pretty good transceiver.
If you can't afford a good station or you've chosen to live in a
CC&R-restricted property that's fine; nobody's going to point their
fingers at you and laugh, unless you start to whinge when you can't
break through the piles of the bigger operations. We all have to
start somewhere, with something, and if that setup leaves you in the
dust for BS7, P5, 7O, etc, so be it. Ed was on in P5 when I lived at
my old apartment with the wire and 600W. I heard him exactly once,
and he had a pileup big enough to choke a horse that I had no hope of
getting through. That's life. P5 will be on again, and I hope my
station here will still be working when it does come back up.
I'm willing to wager that for most of the complainers, if they did
two things they'd get a lot more in the log. Buy a small amp. 600W or
800W makes a HUGE difference (difference between working an
ultra-rare one and not), and two, if putting up a yagi - even a small
one - isn't possible replace their 15 year old feedline with
something that's not green and full of water on the inside. Frankly,
though, a wire at 15 feet above the ground is really never going to
cut it except near solar max, and even then....
Cheers,
Peter,
W2IRT
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