Lloyd:

These are excellent observations, and I appreciate them greatly.

They are good teaching and learning tools for beginning contesters like me.

Thanks again for all of the thought you put into this e-mail.

Tom Behler: KB8TYJ


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lloyd Rasmussen" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2012 9:47 PM
Subject: Re: Some thoughts on the ARRL International DX CW Contest


> In a DX contest, there's not much point in calling CQ unless you are loud
> enough to be noticed, both by the DX stations and by the CW skimmer
> receivers that some stations run, which feed your frequency into the 
> Reverse
> Beacon Network.  When I started calling CQ on 15 or 20 with the beam on
> Europe, I often had 2 or more stations calling me and had to sort out a
> callsign from the confusion.  Obviously, frequencies would eventually run
> dry and I would get no takers for a couple of minutes.  At those times I
> usually thought it advisable to go back into search and pounce mode or
> change bands.
>
> My experience is that if you are using wire antennas, you will have the 
> most
> competitive signal on the lower bands.  On bands like 15 and 10 meters, 
> you
> will have nulls and lobes in your pattern,with some of the lobes aiming 
> your
> signal to high angles that may not propagate.  Note that the DX stations
> which are calling CQ are not only running powerful transmitters, but they
> usually have good receiving antennas and can pick up and are looking for 
> US
> stations who may not be all that loud.  Obviously, on 10 and 15 meters, 
> you
> will be plenty loud in Central and South America.  But there are just not
> enough stations to work inLatin America.
>
> Some of the stations that are calling CQ are multi-multi operations; they
> will have somebody on a band if there is any chance at all of working DX 
> on
> that band.  When I moved out here in the fall of 1975, I had the privilege
> of operating from W4BVV.  The first weekend was the CQWW SSB contest, at 
> the
> 15-meter position.  I made five or six hundred QSOs, but K3EST, operating
> from W3AU across town, made well over 1,000 QSOs with comparable equipment
> and a lot more experience.  So when the CW weekend came along, I was
> assigned ten meters.  I was on the radio for most of 24 hours that 
> weekend,
> and made 20 or 30 QSOs.  Not much fun, but it was still a privilege to be
> there.  Another op at W4BVV was also blind, John Wilson, K4NPV, who is now 
> a
> silent key.
>
> I could talk a lot more about contests and propagation, but I don't want 
> to
> bore everybody or make people think that radio sport is only for big
> stations.  Contests are one time when at least some of the DX is looking 
> for
> every US signal they can hear, and when some countries become active that
> you don't normally work.
> 73,
> Lloyd Rasmussen, W3IUU, Wheaton, Maryland