It is common practice in the CQ WW 160M Contest for CQing on the NA and EU side to occur in the 1810 - 1825 range. I was doing so twice in the contest last weekend. It was pretty much every 3khz CQing in the range both Friday and Saturday nights including NA and EU CQing stations. For the last 5 or 6 years, as far as I can remember, this has been the case.
I had a number of EU stations call me Friday night between 23 and 00Z plus well over 100 NA callers. I was on 1811. I had dinner then came back and heard no one in the region of 1811 around 0130Z. I started CQing. I was immediately told that an ET was below me on CW (in SSB). So I stopped, listened, heard the ET7L station listening up. Stopped and worked him on CW in about 3 calls for a new zone on 160 (ya!) and then went and CQ'd somewhere else. I swept by that pileup over an hour later and it was still clear of SSB - so whatever was being attempted was working. ZF2AM was down CQing around 1806 and there were 3 or 4 other CQing stations within 1810 - 1800. I never CQ down there because EU can't call you. There are really only 3 contests heavy with SSB on 160. ARRL DX SSB, CQ WW SSB, and CQ WW 160 SSB. WPX is zero, FD is essentially zero, and IARU is essentially zero. Maybe NAQP? Not sure, don't really do those. Is this really a problem? I don't think so. Ed N1UR _________________ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
