"So signal reports in WSJT tell me far more about their station and its
RX noise than how well I'm "getting out." Indeed it does, but that's
simple physics and has always been the case since radio was invented
over 100 years ago. The other factors are of course propagation related.
The key to determining how well one is "getting out" is the pattern one
sees over a number of contacts with different people, over a suitable
period. That then gives a qualitative view of our station performance,
and if we average the signal strength reports from many such contacts we
will get reasonably close to a likely signal strength number if one is
interested in a more quantitative analysis.
In my view the signal strength reports are useful as they give me a view
on propagation and how that changes, with some quantification. I can
also tinker with my system and see whether the QSO pattern changes,
again with some quantitative view of that. Yes grid only I could see
the same patterns but without some numbers behind them I wouldn't know
by how much things have changed - even if it's only very broad brush.
Alan G0TLK
On 02/08/2021 06:21, Jim Brown via wsjt-devel wrote:
On 8/1/2021 9:13 PM, MIKE LAVELLE via wsjt-devel wrote:
What's wrong with signal reports... lots of us like to know how well
we are getting out.
But signal reports only tell us signal to noise ratio in the other
station's receiver, NOT signal strength. I use WSJT modes on 6M and
160M to make difficult QSOs -- (on 160M it's EU), so I run legal limit
to better than average antennas and on 160M, have two reversible
Beverages and two RX loops, but WSJT nearly always give signal reports
to the stations I work that are 10-15 dB better than what they give me.
So signal reports in WSJT tell me far more about their station and its
RX noise than how well I'm "getting out." And especially on VHF, if
you can eliminate one "over" by exchanging only the grid, or by
calling with TX2, we can squeeze 30 seconds out of a QSO and squeeze
one third more into a short band opening!
The only reason I call with TX1 most of the time is that I'm a K9
living in W6, and don't want the other station to swing their beam in
the wrong direction. I've lost QSOs that way. :)
73, Jim K9YC
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