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Nothing but whispers
2 October 2011 | by In the last few days several people have posted in their blogs or in forums that conditions on 10m have been great. Either I have been listening at the wrong times or this QTH is as bad on the higher HF bands as it is on VHF. When I have tuned across the 10m band I have found only one or two signals strong enough to be heard above the S4 noise level I now have on this band and none loud enough to work.
It’s probably my QTH. Last year when Olga was away in Ukraine I operated from the car with my QRP K2 and an MP-1 antenna on a mag mount and from just a few miles away but overlooking the coast I worked DX on 15 and 17m that I had never heard from home. Unfortunately going mobile is no longer an option as I am not allowed to drive due to my illness.
Something must be working right though. Most of the day I have been running WSPR on 10m with 5 watts to the dipole and my signal was spotted on 5 continents. It’s good, but it isn’t the same as having an actual conversation. You can see why my interest these days is turning more towards things like EchoLink.
2 Responses to “Nothing but whispers”
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Last Sunday our group was at a “community day” in one of our local towns, we had HF capabilities and 10m had quite a bit of activity…and low and behold many were saying how 10m was open. There was also some decent propagation, on some of the days this past week while I was home…..
Must be your QTH Julian because today I ran across a big pileup at 1647 UTC on 28.500 Mhz. T32C was transmitting from Kiritimati(Christmas Island) on 28.490 Mhz listening up 10. He was 53 at my QTH in northwestern North Carolina on my Solarcon A-99 vertical. I never did break the pileup with 200 watts from my Yaesu FT-1000MP Mark V, but he was working stations on US east and west coast including Hawaii and also stations in Europe and Africa. I Skyped my good friend W4CH Clint at Emerald Isle and he warmed up his Alpha 87-A and worked him using his Yaesu FT-2000D into a 4 element SteppIR up 60 feet and then worked them again on 15 meters. My QRN level was almost non-existent. 73 de Cliff KU4GW