Thread by @RiaJairam

I’ll offer a #hamradio DX tip. There is no one size fits all. From my experience I’ve found that Antenna, operator skill, radio, amplifier all matter, roughly in that order but not always. On the higher (easier) bands, having a good tx antenna matters most. /1

On the low bands that’s where things change. You find yourself using separate receive and transmit antennas on 80 and 160m. Your transmit antenna’s relevance to success suddenly drops down significantly. In fact you can make up for it with an amplifier. /2

Receive antennas make all the difference. As I explained on @ham_coffee using Beverages or a four Square greatly improves signal readability. At that point your S meter becomes completely irrelevant because your receive antennas actually attenuate signal to get better SNR. /3

Even the humble K9AY receive antenna improves received signal readability. Mode also matters with CW and FT8 being better because they are narrower and WSJT utilizes redundancy and a longer transmit cycle. /4

The wildcard is operator skill. Being able to ride the RF gain down to where you can make out a weak signal and pull it out of the noise is something you practice and develop. You have to also train your brain to fill in missing pieces. /5

Proof? Japan on 160m CW, Kosovo on 160 CW, australia on 160CW, and Bouvet on 20m SSB. Low band DXing is something I’ve had a lot of trial and error to learn, but ask any seasoned low band DXer and they will give you a similar assessment. /end

And let’s not forget propagation, but that’s not really within your control.