[OKDXA] 160 last night...

[Kim Elmore]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the assessment.

I was listening on my Array Solutions K9AY loop system. I'm lucky in 
that I live in a very radio-quiet place: between E 48th and E 60th on 
Robinson, east of Norman. I did a W8JI test early on and found that 
in Summer my night time noise levels far exceeded my daytime noise 
levels, indicating I'm in a radio quiet location. The loops do help 
quite a bit: tonight, the loops with the loop preamp on and the 
bandwidth dialed down to about 400 Hz yields a noise level typically 
less than S1 on my Orion II. On the TX antenna, I see noise levels 
between S1 and S3 (this is with the receiver's preamp off and RF gain 
wide open).

But, to the point: what I heard is, then, typical for 160. My friend 
is right: it's a masochist's band!  I'll play more with the gray line 
(I find early morning seems more productive than evening) and see how 
things are. My hat's off to anyone that makes  160 DXCC! Heck, 160 
WAS seems a worthy goal!

Happy New Year and 73,

Kim N5OP


At 08:38 PM 12/31/2009, you wrote:
>Kim,
>
>Last night was pretty typical for us. Lots of qsb. On my NE beverage,
>signals out of EU were S1-S5 (noise floor S1). If you were listening on
>the TX antenna, you probably had S7-S9 noise, making the DX seem very
>weak. Try right at the gray line. Noise is lowest and signals are
>strongest. Stations spotting EU as "booming" are usually on the East
>coast, but I have seen them as strong as S9 here...very rare.
>
>73, Bob K5SM
>
>
>
>Kim Elmore wrote:
> > Well, I decided to gut out 160 last night and see what I could do.
> > \\I figured out some better settings on the Orion II to help and used
> > my K9AY loops to the best ability I had. I worked SM4CAN, F5IN, OM2XW
> > and HA5JI. U se my 50 ft tower shunt fed through a remotely tunable
> > L-network for transmitting. I had radials at one time, but the puppy
> > (now dog) chewed them up. Still, the ground is saturated, so I should
> > be doing relatively well.
> >
> > I kept seeing spots claiming that these guys were "booming" in. They
> > never boomed in at my QTH. This was hard work. I used the amp with
> > about 700 W output to work them, but I was amazed that even those
> > they tended to be in the mud most of the time, I actually did work
> > them. Honestly, if I had tuned across these signals hunting on my
> > own, I'd have passed them right by declaring the path too poor to be
> > useable. I caught these guys only through Internet spots.
> >
> > So, for you 160 veterans, I have this question: is this typical of
> > 160, or am I simply a spoiled newbie? Are signals signals you can
> > actually hear considered booming?
> >
> > Kim Elmore N5OP
> >
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