The QRM levels here in EU are only really a big problem during contests. In early evening our time (1600-2000 UTC) there are a lot of Eastern Europeans on but as the band is not yet open to the West that is not a problem. I tend not to operate from around 2200 to 0500 but if I get up early 160 is really quiet between 0530 UTC and dawn at 0700ish. I can then typically only hear a few USA stalwarts on the band with no QRM whatsoever.
73 Richard G3OQT > On 25 Nov 2019, at 19:13, David Olean <[email protected]> wrote: > > OK I guess the problem is QRM levels in EU. The CQ WW weekend is a big > difference from a typical Wednesday or Thursday evening. I was just getting > paranoid when many stations in a row could not copy me while I was hearing > them with great signals and 559 to 589. I am thinking that maybe my Europe > beverage is working very well. It is long at about 1100-1200 ft (350M) and > consists of two sets of wires spaced 400 ft apart. (120M) We had terrific > winds on Friday night and I was not QRV but wondered if any trees had fallen > in the woods due to the high winds. I had just fixed all my receive wires two > weeks ago. I walked along my beverage wires today, and found a huge tree had > fallen across my South beverage and broken the wire. It also ripped the > termination off the far end. Next I found another tree that managed to fall > across both the South beverage as well as one of my Europe beverages. I had > to get the chainsaw out and now I have a full pickup truck load of firewood > and the two an tennas are working well again. I also had a tree across the JA beverage. My East, Southwest, and West wires all were OK. There are a few more I have not gotten to yet. Maintaining wires in the woods is never ending! > > On Saturday night, I saw no problem with the EU wires or the JA wire (It > works well towards Hawaii and CA) even though they had problems. I did sense > that my South wire was not so hot. No wonder, it was broken in half and > laying on the ground with no termination on the southern end. The EU wire > seemed OK to me even with a tree across it. Same with the JA wire. Oh well, > at least I got some firewood out of the deal. > > 73 > > Dave K1WHS > >> On 11/25/2019 3:08 PM, Fred Kleber wrote: >> >> Hi Top Banders, >> Having operated from the other end on a number of continents, I offer the >> following explanations of why NA hams may wonder why they can't work distant >> stations: >> SE Asia - The amount of non-ham QRM in the ham bands is unbelievable. Most >> notable are the Indonesian (and probably other countries) fisherman who >> populate wide swaths of spectrum and have little to no regard for spectrum >> allocations. They just go buy a cheap ham rig, make it general coverage, >> and off they go. Additionally the beacons on fishing nets can also create >> quite a racket. Oh yes, the commercial power suppliers in poorer countries >> most likely don't even care about repairing line nose. One other challenge >> is the echo from NA stations which is frequently present on the low bands. >> Pileups particularly exacerbate this phenomenon. >> Europe - Here's the cocktail party analogy. When a cocktail party starts, a >> few people come in the door, grab a drink and start talking to each other. >> As more people join the party, the room fills up and the ambient noise (QRM) >> rises. In order to be communicate, guests talk louder. More people join >> the party and the audible QRM noise floor rises. In the radio world >> parallel, equate guest's speech with RF and talking louder with running more >> power. Then consider that many countries don't effectively regulate TX >> power output, and you have a real mess. Most north american's can't >> understand when I tell them that if you're not at least S-9 on 80-20 meters, >> you're most likely not going to be heard. >> I hope you find this information useful. >> 73 & good DX,Fred, NP2X / K9VV et al. >> _________________ >> Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector > _________________ > Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
