The 9:1 Un-un, and the Long Wire

I have just had a quick play with the antenna setup for my 817 WSPR rig. It has been running via the Elecraft T1, to a BNC bindingpost, with the LW and the earth connected directly to it. The T1 doesn't tune up perfectly on 80m (or 160).

I've run the 817/T1/Un-un in parallel with a TS2000, connected to another LW, run through an SGC Mac-200 tuner, which specifically copes with random wire antennas very well. I've had it for years.

I am running two copies of WSPR. One connected to the 817, one to the TS-2000, both through identical SignalLink interfaces, on the same PC. The windows are side by side. Both are set RX only for this test. One of them is uploading

Both rigs on 3.592.600, both RX. The 817 (without the Un-un) is consistently level or 1 dB down on the TS-2000. They hear practically identically (even though the TS-2000 has the preamp switched in). With the un-un on the 817, between the T1 and the wire, the antenna tunes nicely, but I am 7-8dB down from the RX on the TS-2000

Hmmm.

Kit or No Kit?

I'm posting this because I am amused. Two exhibits below, one is WSPR using TX 5W, TS-2000, Vertical antenna, proper earthing system. The other is 817/500mW/bit of wire. Both are about 6 hours worth of snapshot (?)

Exhibit A

Exhibit B:

You know the answer, of course:

Exhibit A is 17m, 5W, Vertical antenna, TS-2000, proper earth,...
Exhibit B is 10m, 500mW, two bits of wire, one a bit longer and 817
So, why do we need kit?

500mW WSPR

I said to myself, when I started this blog, that i wasn't going to start posting WSPR (or PSKR) maps showing how well I'm doing. So I'm not going to post the map, or anything. For one thing, it's probably not very good in comparison to many

I am running a pretty minimal setup here. The 817 is on 500mW, as low as it will go without gadgetry. The "antenna" is a random piece of wire of unknown length I found coiled up in the garage. The only concession I made recently was to lift the wire out of the gutter and position it in the air, with the help of a pole at the far end. I'm running this sophisticated piece of wizardry through an Elecraft T1 automatic ATU. There is no balun. The other half is connected to an earth stake, part of the more sophisticated end of the shack. If you ask any radio-aware friends how good this setup would be for DX, I think they'd probably choke with laughter

So, it's been running since about 8AM this morning. I have heard VE3KYK (5400km), VA3ZLT (5500 km) and UT7GH (2600km). And I'm hearing AG0T at 6300km

But I award myself the DX prize for a two-way WSPR with K5CGM (7100 km, in Jenks, OK). Shame they can't be QSLd....

"poor"

The propagation tools all describe band conditions today as "poor", and most people seem to have taken heed and disappeared to polish their antennas, or some other diversionary activity.

I turned WSPR on, on 40 metres, and picked up a couple of stations running 50 mW beacons - DL1FX and EA6FG, both pretty regularly throughout the afternoon.

I often intend to drop power but forget - once one beacon has gone off at 2.5W (my normal power) there's no real point in dropping it. Dropping the 817 to 500mW will have to happen soon, just to see what 500mW and a bit of wire in a gutter can really do!

JT65 on 20 metres was eerily quiet. But through the murk, a Taiwanese station closing with a Thai station, then a BX (mainland China) working someone else. I guess this DX would normally be drowned out by the cacophony of QRO European operations. I didn't manage to work them, but was pleased to see them

On a slightly different tack, I worked someone on JT9-1 last night. The conversation went thus at the start:

CQ M0DEV IO82
M0DEV G1AAA XX00 (I've changed the callsign)
G1AAA M0DEV -07
M0DEV G1AAA -10
Now ok, he's missed acknowledging my report, but he's sent a report. Maybe he just clicked the wrong text to send.

G1AAA M0DEV RRR
MY REPORT PSE?
What? Sorry?

I sent the report several times, and the reply was REPORT PSE
and finally RRRRR 73 73


So, I think we're in the bag. An email arrived from him this morning to ask why I never sent a report. He claims I was sending "G1AAA M0DEV"...with no digits on the end.

If you can work out how that happened, I'd love to hear it.

The exchange also underlines the importance of sticking exactly to the agreed protocol when we can't have a proper conversation. If he didn't get my original report, he should have pushed on with

M0DEV G1AAA XX00
until he got it.

20 metres WSPR

I left WSPR running on 20 metres whilst flitting in and out of the shack today. It's been on for about 6 hours, and this is a cumulative plot.

Running 2.5 watts out of the ft-817 to what is probably the world's worst antenna - a piece of wire running along some guttering about 2.5m up. With an earth, admittedly. The Elecraft T1 tunes it easily, but I am astonished at how well the 2.5W has got out. It turns out, i think, to be a better TX than RX antenna - a number of these stations can hear me, and only a few are heard by me but don't hear me.

By far the best DX here is RA0SX, who hears me but I can't hear him.

So why do we use such high power? I think there's an element of beat the competition. And, of course, nearly every mode will be much less efficient than WSPR.

The Bear Garden: 20m JT65

I've continued to play with QRP on digital modes, and elected to try 20 metres JT65 this morning, whilst it was fairly quiet. Bear in mind this is QRP not qrp - I am using a piece of wire draped over a drainpipe, not low power to a beam antenna

Here's the picture after fifteen minutes of operating at 2.5W on the 817 - so about 2W, by the time it reaches the drainpipe.

- which is encouraging!

My 2.5W has made it to North and South America, Japan and most of Europe.

Completing a QSO was a little more involved - there was a QRO RTTY station right in the middle of the range of 14.076. I remembered that my 817 has a Collins filter for CW in which, fortuitously, works in DIG mode and, fortuitously, is almost exactly the right width for a JT65 signal to fit in it. Pop the NAR button, TX, and RU3VQ, just under 3000km away, completed with me. That, because of domestic issues, is the end of this morning's experiment.