{"id":85,"date":"2017-10-26T23:11:26","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T06:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/?p=85"},"modified":"2017-12-10T11:17:53","modified_gmt":"2017-12-10T19:17:53","slug":"found-a-beacon-on-2m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/2017\/10\/found-a-beacon-on-2m\/","title":{"rendered":"Found a Beacon on 2m"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I briefly heard someone on 10m single-sideband (SSB) saying goodbye to his QSO friend, and that he was going to tune around on 2m SSB. Although I knew 2m SSB existed, never occurred to me that now that I have an all-mode rig, I could also tune around there instead of being bound only to FM by a handheld radio. I started sweeping from 144.100 MHz and started hearing morse code at right around 144.282 MHz. I switched to CW mode and tuned further to 144.282.23:<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"1160\" height=\"653\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tsUv91BxZxQ?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I recorded it, and was fascinated.\u00a0Note, this was received while connected to my 10m dipole antenna that is pretty poorly mounted against a fence 6ft off the ground&#8211; not the most optimal setup.<\/p>\n<p>After spending many retries, replaying the recording over and over and referencing my morse code (CW) cheatsheet, I found this to say:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>VVV DE KJ6KO\/B CM88WS<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is hamspeak for: Testing from KJ6KO beacon, (at grid) <a href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/maps\/VXUsmoGRBhN2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CM88ws<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I googled this, and found the site for the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/users.innercite.com\/kj6ko\/beacon.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">KJ6KO beacon<\/a> at Bald Mtn, some 65 miles away from my location (my grid location is: CM98hb). So neato!<\/p>\n<p>When I got my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eham.net\/articles\/11750\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">first radio<\/a> with rubber ducky antenna, I used to think that 2 meters with 5 watts only had range for a few miles, since the only repeaters I could hit were fairly close by. Little did I know how much the antenna itself, polarization, and antenna placement mattered.<\/p>\n<p>Now that I live in a valley with repeaters on mountains all around, I can see that a 40w beacon 65 miles away comes in loud and clear <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/RST_code\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">559<\/a>\u00a0(in spite of a wrong antenna that is poorly placed). And now with me only transmitting 5w with an elevated low-SWR half-wave vertical antenna and counterpoise, I come in fairly clear hitting a club repeater 50 miles away.<\/p>\n<p>Even on VHF 2m, ham radio is quite amazing. Finding this beacon was a fun journey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I briefly heard someone on 10m single-sideband (SSB) saying goodbye to his QSO friend, and that he was going to tune around on 2m SSB. Although I knew 2m SSB existed, never occurred to me that now that I have an all-mode rig, I could also tune around there instead of being bound only to FM by a handheld radio. I started sweeping from 144.100 MHz and started hearing morse code at right around 144.282 MHz. I switched to CW mode and tuned further to 144.282.23: I recorded it, and was fascinated.\u00a0Note, this was received while connected to my 10m dipole antenna that is pretty poorly mounted against a fence&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/2017\/10\/found-a-beacon-on-2m\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,4,6],"tags":[29,15,28],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antennas","category-cw","category-ssb","tag-cw","tag-digital","tag-vhf"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9naFX-1n","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":982,"url":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/2020\/07\/some-number-stations-sunday-morning\/","url_meta":{"origin":85,"position":0},"title":"Some Number Stations Sunday Morning","author":"AD6DM","date":"July 26, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This morning I thought I'd search for number stations on the bands. According to Priyom.com, Number stations are shortwave transmissions from foreign intelligence agencies to spies in the field of foreign countries. They carry encrypted messages in form of groups of numbers or letters, using either automated voice, Morse code,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;CW&quot;","block_context":{"text":"CW","link":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/category\/cw\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":283,"url":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/2017\/12\/what-is-this-transmission\/","url_meta":{"origin":85,"position":1},"title":"What is this transmission?","author":"kf6ujs","date":"December 12, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I checked in to W6VVR Vaca Valley Radio Club net this evening and they said post-net they'd be hopping on to 7.190MHz. Quickly set up my bugcatcher for 40m and listened, but nothing heard, except for a QSO in progress on 7.192 from Arizona to Los Angeles. So I thought\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Digital&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Digital","link":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/category\/digital\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":125,"url":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/2017\/11\/first-10-meter-qso\/","url_meta":{"origin":85,"position":2},"title":"First 10 Meter QSO!","author":"kf6ujs","date":"November 2, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Antennas&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Antennas","link":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/category\/antennas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":929,"url":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/2020\/02\/sota-with-ai6xg-on-wragg-ridge\/","url_meta":{"origin":85,"position":3},"title":"SOTA with AI6XG on Wragg Ridge","author":"AD6DM","date":"February 21, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Dan AI6XG has been doing SOTA for a couple years, and we were in CWOps Level 2 class together in 2018. He graciously offered to go on a SOTA hike with me, and picked this great spot mapped out by Jeff AA6XA around the Lake Berryessa area. Enjoy watching my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Antennas&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Antennas","link":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/category\/antennas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":104,"url":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/2017\/10\/ham-code-guide\/","url_meta":{"origin":85,"position":4},"title":"Ham Code Guide","author":"kf6ujs","date":"October 29, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Spurred by the previous post, I'm using the Koch method for learning Morse code (CW). I'm attaching here a document I made back when I first became a ham in 1999 that is a quick reference for prosigns and Q-Codes. Morse is also there, but I do not recommend CW\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;CW&quot;","block_context":{"text":"CW","link":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/category\/cw\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":291,"url":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/2017\/12\/more-cw-practice\/","url_meta":{"origin":85,"position":5},"title":"More CW Practice","author":"kf6ujs","date":"December 25, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Merry Christmas! Today I landed upon a video by KJ4YZI Eric of HamRadioConcepts (https:\/\/youtu.be\/Jls-PiR-dBI) entitled \"How I learned Morse code fast and easy\". I found the title suspect because CW is neither fast nor easy, but he did help me a lot with this simple video. He learned with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;CW&quot;","block_context":{"text":"CW","link":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/category\/cw\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121,"href":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions\/121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ad6dm.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}