C21MM has been in solid for well over 1.5 hours on FT8 tonight and it's
still early. They were loud enough at times (at least on my end) for a
CW QSO, but they didn't decode my signal on FT8 until their signal
peaked up to R=0, whereas on this end I was decoding solidly down to
R=-20. Clearly they have some receive challenges. The DHDL antenna that
C21MM plans to use for receive has been employed by AA7JV on some of his
expeditions, so it's got a proven track record. Perhaps there is a storm
that is very close to them causing unusually high QRN.
I need to go to bed, today is a work day 🙁
73, Mike W4EF.................
On 10/20/2024 6:13 PM, Wes Stewart via Topband wrote:
The realities about some of these DXpedtions is that they are organized by
Europeans and favor working EU. Take the just concluded (if they kept to schedule)
PX0FF expedition. The ops were all Europeans and >60% of their Qs were with EU
and only 21% were with NA. They didn't even operate 160 CW. They made 1046 FT8 QSOs
on 160 out of >150,000 total.
8R7X was another one with EU 54% and NA 31%. Of course propagation favored EU,
but they were active long enough that I worked them on both 160 CW and FT8 as
well as 22 other band/modes.
Ditto A8OK that I worked on 33 band/modes, none on topband. EU 64%, NA 19%.
I'm not trying to disparage our EU friends, I'm just pointing out the numbers.
C21MM will be QRV for at least another week. So far they haven't made any
topband CW contacts and only 6 with NA presumably on FT8. They claim to have
installed an RX antenna, but have high noise. So we shall see, but I'm not
holding my breath. To their credit they have worked about the same number of
CW and FT8 Qs and a few on RTTY, three of them mine.
AA7JV is a dedicated 160 man, who will put in the hours needed. These other
guys are not so motivated and want to run up their Q count by working the most
productive bands, or by turning on the FT8 robots.
Wes N7WS
On Sunday, October 20, 2024 at 12:11:54 PM MST, Jim Brown
<[email protected]> wrote:
On 10/20/2024 11:14 AM, Steve Harrison wrote:
If possible, please spend some time attempting to work some North
American stations on *160 and/or 80m **CW*. A few minutes here and there
is NOT enough; HOURS on the low bands are needed in order to catch the
propagation peaks all across the NA and SA continents.
YES! Veteran expeditioner AA7JV recognized that topband openings tended
to happen on one or two nights of a multi-week activation, and developed
networks to allow simultaneous operation on CW and FT8 during every hour
there's a possibility of propagation. One of the most glaring failures
is abandoning the band at the first hint of daylight, when propagation
PEAKS over the next 45 minutes to an hour!
73, Jim K9YC
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