Hi Jim, Merry Christmas, One thing most forget; one must overcome the noise floor of the other station. Since that is an unknown, even on loud stations (some Middle East entities, all mouth, no ears); power and gain are the simplest solution. Loud wins.
For the first 43 years of ham radio I had 100 watts and a low wires. I caught the DX bug about 15 years ago, taking 5 years to reach 200 entities (seriously high noise floor). It was basically QRP and taught some technique as you found. I moved to a larger piece of land, lower noise floor (but farther north), grew a tower, added a large beam (better wires too) and got an amp, 500 then 1500 (all Elecraft duh). TS-940, then K3 then K4. Those techniques, still work. 200 is now reached easily in a few months without effort every year now; ATNO of many more entities (Bouvet) were only through max limit power and the beam gain, some just barely made the log (not possible QRP). DXCC on 160 (I was bored) took a few months in one winter; because it was a quieter place, impossible at my former home. The lessons of a meager station work still but the world gets larger too (same game, larger arena). Because the better antennas hear better as well, so I’m (still) at a point of being able to work most of what I hear on most bands; I just hear a lot more now (160 needs help, but the cycle needs to fade too, I have time to set up for that). For low bands, raw power rules in DXing; gain is really expensive. My operating mode now is be loud, get heard/logged, move on; so LOUD was a need before my expiration date arrives. I’m not bragging or gloating, but after being blind and near mute for decades, I can now both see and hear, I’m excited and just tickled (exuberant). Now stuck at 323, the last 17 entities I need are unlikely to ever be heard again. It, like my goal (all entities, all bands, all modes) is just a target, though improbable. I will continue to build and refine the station. Reducing output power (again, I remember) or ERP caps would cripple most serious DXing and seriously wound contesters. I was in the dark ages before as I said and have zero wish to revisit that era. My last point is that everyone usually does the best they can with what they have; with the hope of making improvements over time. Most do. I was blessed, could and did. 73 Rick nk7i > On Dec 25, 2024, at 2:12 PM, Jim Brown <j...@audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote: > > On 12/25/2024 12:20 PM, Rick NK7I wrote: >> I clearly have little patience for QRP, life is too short for that; loud is >> less aggravating. > > Hi Rick, > > I appreciate your desire for a big signal and all that you have done the > achieve it -- I've done something similar here, and do most of my operating > at legal limit, I've also done a lot of QRP, almost exclusively in contests, > some of it with a great QRP operator, W6JTI. > > Operating when you're NOT loud presents a very different set of challenges. > We must depend more strongly on propagation, not only between us, but between > the other station and stations from other directions than mine! We must also > be better operators -- there are special skills to being weak, like timing > calls, knowing when and how to repeat, and to send fills. And there's finding > spots in the CW passband where I the other station is listening and I can > squeeze my call in; and how fast to send my call. > > And, even with a big signal, when you live on the west coast and are trying > to work EU, or live on the east coast and want to work Asia, you're the > equivalent of QRP, so you've got to work that DX when the closer stations > don't have great propagation and you do. And all of those things about being > weak! Doing a lot of QRP has made me a much better op in those conditions! > > 73, Jim K9YC > > > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html > Message delivered to rick.n...@gmail.com ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
