[OKDXA] Thoughts on 160, kinda long

[Clifton Sikes]

My thoughts, now that can be something to ponder, huh? Anyway, after four
months of pretty dedicated work on 160, I thought I would share what I have
seen and heard.

We all know ON4UN's book on low band DX'ing as the ultimate technical work.
I have found a couple of others that I would recommend. First is DX'ing on
the edge, The Thrill of 160 Meters. It is written by K1ZM, and a great
history of acivity on top band,along with some fantastic nuts and bolts
articles on antennas for 160. I got more from it than anything I have read
on the subject. The latest addition to my library is The Antenna Compendium
Vol. 7. It has some good articles on antennas, and proved out some of the
things I was seeing with my own inverted L. Mine is 48 feet vertical, and
120 feet semi horizontal, with a series capacitor in the feed point. It
works!

I had spent three winters using a Carolina Windom 160, and was able to work
21 countries with it. However, I heard lots more who could not hear me.
Since putting up the L in late September, I'm now up to 50 worked. Vertical
does seem to be better than low horizontal. I have heard Bert, K2BA, doing
quite well with his dipole, but it's up at 100 feet. I can't do that, so
vertical sounds better for my setup.

The biggest surprise has been that we don't hear Europe very well here in
Ok. Even the big boys like W5TM have noticed the same thing. I figured
Europeans would be a dime a dozen, like on other bands. Not so! The other
surprise has been how easy it has been to work African countries. An arricle
in The Compendium #7 explained that phenomenon, due to the design of my
antenna. One thing that I read in most all DX aricles is, send your call
once, not over and over. That seems to work! The guys on the other end of
the pile will pick out a single call and work you while others are sending
their call 4,5,6 times. Also, matching the sending speed of the operator on
the other end is a good thing, besides being polite. I don't particularly
like working at 15-18 wpm, but it seems to help get through the noise.
Speaking of noise, I have found that the RF gain control is my best friend
on the low bands. Cut it back to eliminate noise and give the AGC a break,
then up the AF gain to improve the signal to noise ratio. Heck, some nights
I put in 20dB of attenuation, just to cut the noise. These are just a few of
the tricks I have learned, and they might be of some use by others. The
bottom line is spend time on the band. I have been able to work several new
ones in the contests, but many more by just tuning around to see who might
pop out of the racket. Sorry this ran so long, but I'm having a blast. I
hope you all do too.

73, Clif N5UW