 |
| Signals on 10m this afternoon |
Sunday afternoon has seemed to pass just a little faster with setting our clocks ahead last evening an hour. I did find some time to get on the radio (finally after about 5 days off). I tried 10m and according to the P3 screen things were fairly calm for that band. As I was starting up my PC along with the DXlab software I did notice some small and large spikes on the P3. Most of the time when the band is this dead and it was about 2 in the afternoon as well these spikes are just QRM.
 |
| EA2LU antennas |
Upon investigation to my surprise the first spike was a signal from PV8ADI in Brazil. For some reason I have had troubles with South American station. Not sure if it's the position of the dipole in the attic or just one of those always hard to get spots for me. I gave the station a go with 500mW's but as I expected....nothing. He was having lots of stations (ones I could not hear) come back to him. The flavor of the contact was signal report and move on. I brought the K3 up to 5 watts and gave him a another call. He came back to me and we exchanged reports and moved on.
I was now noticing some stronger signals, the first I tuned in was EA2LU from Spain. I tried Jorge with 500mW's and made the contact without any troubles. He was running a Yagi at 100 watts. This was a nice contact as we were able to exchange rig info, antenna info and
 |
| EA2LU setup |
chat about how well he found my attic dipole preforming along with only 500mW's. I then moved on to another strong signal that had just shown up while my QSO what Jorge was ending. This station was EA1ND calling CQ and again I was able to make the contact with only 500mW's as well. Nacho had told me this was his first contact into Canada and he was very thankful that I came back to him. For sure I will upload to LoTW and Eqsl. We spoke for a short time about the weather both here and there along with RST, power and name. These Spanish contacts at 500mW's netted me 7600 miles per watt. Just made contact with FG5FR from Guadeloupe with 500mW's on 15m. I have been keeping one ear on the rig (headphones) and writing the blog post.....multi tasking who would had thunk.
Nice openings on 10m
10 March 2013 | by 
HamRadioAuctions
Reliance Antennas
Enigma Shop
R&L Electronics
antennas.us
Ears to Our World
It’s always great to read other’s experiences using low power and to see that 10m is sometimes open. You don’t need a lot of power to work the world. Just yesterday I worked Japan from WA on 17m SSB with just 5 watts. It’s magic and exciting and makes the hobby that much more enjoyable.
What mode were you using when you made these contacts?
Scott
K3BYU
Good evening Scott, yes it’s so true that low power can get long distances and when it’s on 10m’s that’s even better. I was using CW to make the contacts. I have not as of yet used SSB but I do have the Elecraft KX3 and am considering ordering the Mic to get on the SSB QRP band wagon! Scott thanks for taking the time to read and to comment on the blog.
Mike
how do you know when you are running a mw does the elecraft go that low
Good morning Preston, with the K3 I am able to dial the power down to 100mW’s. If I want to get the power below that I use an attenuator along with the QRPometer to measure power below 100mW’s.
Hello all,
Just work EA2LU this afternoon with only 5 watts to my buddipole vertical (no coil) hooked up to my chain link fence as a counterpoise. It has 183 ft or 55 meters around my backyard.
Have great fun and lot of success with this set-up.
See you on the bands.
72/73 Michel