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I didn’t feel like playing in the CQWW SSB contest this weekend particularly. Remember the story of ‘Golf Four Victor X-Ray Elephant‘? Well, that! So this morning, I thought I’d set the 1W 28MHz WSPR running again for the day.

This was the result

When I got back to the car this evening around 1815z I switched on the 10m rig. It was tuned to the CW end and it immediately became apparent that conditions were still good – with a fierce pileup being audible. I didn’t stick around to see who it was.

I headed up to 29MHz to look for AM stations. One or two were audible, but the one that caught my ear was Rob W1AEX who was coming in really well. As I drove out of the station and towards home, I listened to Rob making some QSOs. To my surprise, rather than using boat anchor type gear, it turned out that Rob was using up to date SDR gear, a Flex radio. It sounded great! I laughed when Rob explained he was using a $2.79 microphone! There was quite a pileup going, so sadly I couldn’t attract Rob’s attention, but the story doesn’t end there.

I heard Malcolm, G8NRP calling Rob too. When it was clear neither of us had got through the pileup, I asked Malcolm if he had time to QSY and make a contact. We did, and it was a first AM QSO for both of us, which was a lot of fun. Not great DX, being 10 miles or so, but it’s a start!

Meanwhile, checkout Rob W1AEX’s station here

When you look back on the peaks of solar cycles, I find that some of the memories usually feature 28MHz. Last cycle I spent loads of time on 28MHz CW working across the US and beyond from a tiny garden in Windsor, with a stealth wire antenna! The cycle before that, I remember listening to mobiles driving around Tokyo on 29MHz FM on my converted CB set with a small antenna in the loft.

I wonder what this cycle’s memories will be? Maybe some of the low power WSPR and JT65A. But this evening, driving home would be a contender. The KQ2H repeater was end stop on the Anytone and absolutely jammed with people trying to access it. After a couple of abortive attempts to put a call through, I sat back and listened.

6Y5SJ was working into the UK and Germany. A mobile in London was working a fixed station in Essex- over a path of 7000 miles or so! But what was brilliant was listening to (I think – this is from memory) K2SLJ/P using a UHF portable working another portable in New York through a UHF link. One of them was using 1W from a Baofeng UV-3R. How cool that their signals are crossing the Atlantic and beyond.

Although the map looks quite similar to yesterday, in fact, it felt quite different. There was no sign of VK/ZL this morning for me, the band opened with Eastern Europe and Russia, although a VK5 was received here around midday – I was not heard there.

Also, many periods went by without my signals being spotted – very different to yesterday. I did wonder if the aerial had a problem, but I am certain it was just slightly poorer conditions. The afternoon did improve slightly with a few reports from the USA, with KE7A being the furthest west.

I’ve noticed this with low power WSPR before – you are very much at the mercy of conditions – where as with higher power you’d ride out the peaks and troughs.

I decided that I would run 1W of 28MHz WSPR through the day today. Delighted that I did and conditions were interesting; reports from Australia and New Zealand as well as a nice opening into the US in the afternoon.

No sign of any signals from Africa or South America today.

Coming home from the station this evening I noticed 10m was still open. Bypassing the SSB segment I headed up to 29000kHz and turned the mode switch to AM.

To my surprise, I heard N3GEG in QSO with F6KHM (who was inaudible). Up 10khz there were some more US stations but much weaker. I could see where the CB expression ‘in the back of the box’ came from. Back down on 29000khz WA8ATF was now working into France. Using an FT101F and a Collins amp, it sounded amazing!

Operating mobile on AM is not without challenges. You hear every powerline, every noisy house, every bus…

Brilliant fun though!

It’s ages since I played with WSPR, but inspired by Julian G4ILO’s 28MHz WSPR results I thought I would give it a go.

I set the rig up with about 1 Watt out – a little over but I have quite a long feeder run to the Butternut. To start with, I doubted that it was working but then I heard G0MGM and he heard me – so it was obviously working!

Left things running throughout the day. My most distant report seemed to be around 3600km away; UA6AAK and 4X1RF around the same sort of distance. Some great reports from EA8FF in the latter part of the day.

Heard LU and T5 – but my 1W didn’t get that far today!

Fun experiment which I will repeat!