[OKDXA] DX info

[Nelson Derks]

Coy:

I was shocked to hear Clif say he has no fondness for computers! Yeah, I
know about different strokes for different folks, but without a computer and
desktop publishing software, I'd have been hard pressed to come up with all
those episodes of D'X Files featuring the adventures of N5UW and...
Uhhhhhhhh... OK... Now I think I understand.

Good Job by all involved this morning, and maybe some day we'll be able to
have a meeting where the third row can actually hear what's going on.
Amazing how the noise floor in a room like that can soak up the pearls of
wisdom, and Gen'l Dave, too. If anyone has a cheezy little PA system they
can drag out to the next HamFest meeting, do it... At least the Bristow
Library meeting room is well-equipped.

As for the topic at hand, one thing I've learned over the past few years is
the value in knowing when to GIVE IT A REST... When I first got handy on HF,
I thought one trick to busting a pile-up was persistence. Keep calling until
you catch that golden moment when there's enough of a pause in the QRM for
the DX station to hear you. Sometimes it worked, but I'm sure there were
times when I was being a persistent PITA and doing nothing but adding to the
noise floor. Now that I have some serious DX worked, I'm not as hungry. If I
can't get a reponse after the fifth or sixth call, I'll back off and wait
until the DX station comes up in signal strength. If it doesn't, I'll catch
them next time. This has nothing to do with amplifiers or antennas. It's
simply a case where there are times when you're not in the sweet spot of the
skip zone and all you're doing is QRM'ing those who are. It took a little
time before I understood that. Cranking up a linear when conditions aren't
in your favor won't always make you the bigger signal, but it can make you
the bigger doofus, and that's my two cents worth...

As for the pile-up behavior Clif and everyone else heard this past summer,
it was a poor summer for DX and some folks tend to compensate for poor condx
by getting waaaay too agressive... Kinda' like the way some folks behave in
a traffic jam, and it only takes a few to make a mess.

- AC5UP