On 6/11/2026 5:56 PM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist wrote:
At least on the USA West Coast, 160 meter contest activity is greatly reduced vs 10 years ago, especially for the 160 meter only contests.
I attribute it to 1) the total disinterest by the vast majority of ops east of the Mississippi in doing anything but work the Atlantic basin, with TX and RX antennas to support these priorities. So all we have to contest with are those NA stations who can't work EU (East coast wall or otherwise), and DX from SA, OC, and AS, with not nearly enough mults to put us in the game.
2) The greatly increasing noise levels on both ends of the QSO. As I've observed in other threads, I don't hear EU on CW anymore, and that's for ten years or so. Noise is now hurting into AS -- my NE and SE Beverage face strong noise sources. The SE source never goes to sleep, the NE does -- it's probably power and/or home entertainment tied to human activity. This is true on all bands -- I used to be able copy the little guns and even the pop-guns from JA on the higher bands. No more.
The guys at N6RO report greatly increasing noise. 73, Jim K9YC _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
