Comments (4)

By John AE5X, May 4, 2012

3 years and a dipole

Carrying on with the tradition of the past two years since moving to this QTH, I’m looking back at entities worked during the year and my dipole’s performance overall in the three years I’ve been here.

(Regarding the asterisk, a 2-week period with a homebrew Moxon for 15m accounts for 1 band-country).

The dipole is (and has been*) my only antenna at this QTH. It is for 80m, fed with ladder line for 10-80m operation and is currently 23m up in the pines, thanks to a homebrew crossbow from way back in the 8th grade.

This antenna continually proves its worth throughout the HF spectrum in both pile-ups and contesting. In so doing, it is my friend and my enemy – my friend because of its performance; my enemy because it’s made it hard to justify a tower/Yagi. But more about towers in an upcoming post… ;-) Continue reading '36 months and a dipole*'»

Comments (7)

By John AE5X, May 3, 2012

An interesting post was made to QRP-L today by Jim NX8Z. I agree wholeheartedly with what he says as I’ve noticed the same trend over the decades – not just on the QRP freqs, but throughout the CW sub-bands.

I’ll post my own thoughts as a comment so consider this a guest post for the purpose of propagating Jim’s thoughts to others who don’t read QRP-L. Tnx Jim.

de NX8Z:

I wish to make a proposal regarding CW ops that has probably already been
made, and I just haven’t stumbled across it yet.  If so, my apologies.

I am a retired ham and can operate on the HF bands during weekdays when
others may be at their day jobs.  I am also an incurable CW (and QRP)
buff.  My observation is that many times the CW segments are empty and
quiet during the daytime.  You are probably thinking that I have lousy
radios and antennas or that I am stuck down in one of those West Virginia
“hollers” and can’t get out.  I do get out from time to time.  I send good
RST’s and get good RST’s.  It just seems like most times, however, no one
is there. Continue reading 'Guest post: Encouraging Weekday CW?'»

Comments (9)

By John AE5X, May 2, 2012

7O6T

At the moment, 7O6T is very strong on the higher HF bands well after their local midnight – hours when 15 meters would normally be dead. Funny how rare callsigns can open bands…

Same thing yesterday and the day before.

I regret not having recorded ST0R for comparison – in the future I think I’ll video my reception of distant DXpeditions, if only for my own record of how they, conditions and my dipole (don’t laugh!) performed.

The pile-ups are beginning to thin and the ops on the far end are just outstanding, not only in their ability to assert control over the pile-up, but to pick individual calls from the maelstrom quickly.

About 2 hours before making this video, Continue reading '7O6T: Is it the antennas or the saltwater?'»

Comments (4)

By John AE5X, April 30, 2012

Got ‘em!

Great ops, orderly pile-ups and loud signals. Let’s hope it continues.

Super loud sigs from 7O6T on both 15 and 17 meters well after their local midnight and currently building on 30m.

I think many people are going to be surprised at how easy it is to work this team…another T32C?

Good luck all.

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Comments (2)

By John AE5X, April 29, 2012

W5 to 7O

UPDATE: Game on – the callsign is 7O6T and here’s their website with all the details. Looks to be an all-K3 DXpedition.

From the team:

The operation will get started at 21:00Z on April 30 and will go on until 21:00Z May 15.

There are 11 operators on Socotra right now with more to join them later and some leave on earlier dates.

About that 3-element Robinson antenna mentioned on their website…from Wikipedia:

The Robinson Barnes HF Broadband Antenna was conceptualised and developed in the early 1990s by Graham Robinson and John Barnes and has become a widely used design for commercial and military HF base stations, where ground space is limited, yet a full 4 octave bandwidth (2-30 MHz)is required.

It is a centre fed wire antenna with two arms each consisting of 3 radiating elements and is generally tower mounted, either horizontally or as an “inverted V”

The design has almost double the radiation efficiency of the HF folded dipole of the same length and is nearly half the size of other traditional HF wire antennas such as the “Australian traveling wave dipole” The standard size Robinson Barnes antenna is only 28m in length. The “Australian traveling wave dipole” in comparison is 52m long.

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If you can overlook Google’s comical translation, it seems a last-minute DXpedition to Yemen (Number 5 on DX Magazine’s Most Wanted List) is in the works and set to air any day now.

With an excellent team of at least 6 experienced ops (and 22 others rumored, operating 6 simultaneous stations) including RA3AUU, UA4HOX, N6PSE, RA9USU, YT1AD, K1LZ, UA3AB and R7LV, this should make many a DXer’s year.

Gentlemen! Somehow it happened suddenly and unexpectedly … Quickly and easily obtained permission to gather ….
Warm up your output stage and set your witch and Beveridge in a southerly direction, from there you will receive happiness in New Ham called Wan … We obtain a license for the long-awaited work from one of the most mysterious of the Arab countries – Yemen. Continue reading 'DXpedition to Yemen imminent?'»

Comments (3)

By John AE5X, April 29, 2012

Unfortunately, I was only able to participate in QRPTTF 2012 for a short while – not enough time to justify an outdoor excursion.

The MO here was to operate from the home QTH with the rig at 5 watts, spot those I heard/worked to QRPSpots in order to drum up some business for them and then to record them as MP3 files. Over the years, I’ve periodically received emailed MP3′s of how I sounded at some distant location and like to provide the same every now and then. Continue reading 'QRP to the Field – 2012'»