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.

Antennas- properly.

There's an object lesson for you. Do it properly.

I spent an hour this morning re-arranging a long wire antenna - it's now insulated, is not (now) lying on anything, and I connected the other side to an earth stake instead of a flimsy counterpoise ending on the (admittedly metal) washing line post.

The signals I'm seeing on 80m WSPR now are awesome, even though I am still only up about 4m. G8JNJ/A (I assume it was him) came in at +9, and in the last 10 mins of operation I haven't seen a negative dB

TX seems better too - I'm using my usual 500mW, and DK4XI is hearing me.

I'd better re-fettle the "main" LW at M0DEV, methinks. It's got the good earth, but the route runs through trees, in a zig-zag. There must be points where some RF escapes to earth...

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.

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....

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.