This is what happens when...

...I let a half decent long wire play with my 756proIII for the day on 30m.

Unfortunately, again, all of the tasty dx hears me but I can't hear them. I think the best reciprocal contact (i.e. close to proper QSO) here is Israel.

This is 30m, 5 watts, long wire. More than I normally use with the 817. But there isn't THAT much difference with the an 817 on 2.5W with no preamp, is there? That's 817,2.5W, poor LW, this one is a considerably more expensive Icom 756ProIII, sloghtly better LW and 5W

And a Happy Christmas to All

30m

It's easy to forget 30m. It's neither to long, nor too short, not too wide, and it's one of those suspicious WARC bands. For me, yesterday, it was the Goldilocks band. I couldn't get much out of 10m, and I didn't want to spend the day on 160m (I tend to drop down there at dusk), so 30m it was.

This is the whole day - from about 9AM until about 9PM 21st December. Operating at 2.5W. Most of the DX heard me, but I didn't hear them (usual poor antenna problems at M0DEV)- but I am perpetually surprised at how well I get out.

I'm running on 30m again today, but this time with 500mW. Clearly, a direct comparison doesn't mean a great deal, but it will be interesting. KK5MR has already spotted me from what appears from his station notes to be a relatively modest setup.

JT65 encapsulated

JT65 transmissions in the 30m band plotted in three dimensions. To the right is time, to the left is frequency and up is "energy"

I do like representations like this.

Plotted with speclab - which is wonderful. And free.

30m by accident

I ended up on 30m by accident. The 817 on 80m and the 756 on 160m didn't get on - desensing wasn't the word. The antennas were "coupled" in every sense of the word. So I stuck the 817 on 30m and 5W and left it to it.

This is a couple of hours this evening on my usual unsophisticated antenna system ( a bit of wire).

I must get a real mode out on 30m in the evening.

The interesting thing here is that this particular piece of wire runs pretty much east-west. So how does this work?