This afternoon I went to my brother-in-law’s property about 8 miles from my house, where he has nice wide open lot, and I set up my N9SAB 40m-6m off-center fed dipole with a portable flagpole (20ft high). I figured the open space would do some good for the signal. I set up with an inverted V configuration, had my FT-857D with YT-100 tuner and 7ah battery, and even unfolded the 39w solar panel to help the battery. My goal was to make my first contact on 20m today. I tuned around on 14MHz and heard a very busy band, with a couple of notable hams blasting through with their high… Read More
Continue ReadingFirst Reception of International Traffic
I deployed my 40-6m OCF dipole in my back yard here in Stockton, CA (grid CM98hb), and tuned on 20m on Saturday afternoon, and for the first time on this band found a clear QSO in progress. W3BQG was transmitting initially with 1000w from near Pittsburgh, PA, and his CQ was answered by someone in Japan, whom I could also hear. He says he later bumped it down to 500w. A lot of the time on simplex conversations like this, it’s one-sided with only the nearer person audible, but this was an easy QSO to follow. I suspect the Japanese operator was sending high wattage as well. This was almost 3pm… Read More
Continue ReadingFirst 10 Meter QSO!
This is probably old hat to the veteran hams out there but this evening I finally, successfully, made clear contact on 10m SSB phone! A milestone for me, after tons of antenna research and tuning around on the frequencies forever. Stockton Delta Amateur Radio Club (SDARC) has a weekly informal net on 28.457 MHz SSB, and whenever I could be at my radio on Thursday evenings, I’ve tried to make contact during this net to no avail. This evening, I decided to move my poorly-placed (6 ft off the ground against a wooden fence) 10m dipole a few feet outward toward the open air, and waited. I should also mention… Read More
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