Mal, Jim, LF

I think Jim certainly has a point, that the Scarborough to Shetland path 
mainly over sea, with no major intervening over-land path, and as such it 
could be expected that Mal and I should be almost ideally located for 
daytime "semi-DX" QSOs.

Mal's comments about G3XIZ and M0JXM does raise a question, in that the 
inability for XIZ and JXM to hear me isn't only to do with the sea-path 
vs. land-path difference in path-loss.

Have a listen to the 2 recordings I made this morning of M0JXM

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3551430/M0JXM_110904-085418.mp3

and M0JXM handing over to G3XIZ

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3551430/M0JXM_G3XIZ_110904-085418.mp3

Clearly there is propagation between the 2 mainland stations and Shetland, 
at this time of day. Dennis is very weak, admittedly, but given reciprocal 
reception at his end I think we could have made a minimal QSO. The RX was 
switched between SSB and CW filters during the recording. Dennis is still 
audible in a 2.5kHZ bandwidth though.

Chris is perfectly Q5, easy armchair copy.

I believe Chris's ERP to be around the 500mW mark, and my own ERP must be 
very similar, possibly a touch higher.

For Chris not to hear me means his noise floor must be higher than mine, 
by a considerable margin.

This, and not the path itself, I feel is the problem.

Mal, like you, I can't appreciate the conditions many urban MF operators 
face, but the RF environment must be very difficult and we have allow for 
that when comparing performance.

I hear G3XIZ calling CQ again, at 1153UTC, can't raise him though... will 
try QRSS3 for a few minutes...

Cheers,

John
GM4SLV


On Sun, 4 Sep 2011, mal hamilton wrote:

> jim
> This morning I had a qso with GM4SLV 569 with me but g3xiz es m0jxm in the
> Bedford area could not hear him which is odd, so its not just the N.West
> There are other considerations like type of RX antennas in use, whereas I
> was using the 80 m vert loop and its broadside to John which is not ideal.
> de mal/g3kev