Royal Flush

I get a kick out of using all the HF Antennas sequentially.   10m and 15m was the fan dipole.   17m,  20m,  30m,  40m were all quarter wave verticals with 8 radials.   80m and 160m was the invterted L's with 8 radial.  Nice to know all the antenas are working!

When Hobbys Collide

The other hobby is Ultra Running ,  anywhere from 50 km to 100 Miles at time mainly on trails.   A local friend and Ultra Runner was doing the Moab 240 and I was going to Crew and Pace him.   Cell coverage in the Moab Dessert in Utah was spotty at best and most of the time there was none!   Local amateurs more or less ran the event.   They were using repeaters and simplex frequencys to provide communications to the dozen or so aid stations.  They were also tracking the runners who were wearing " Spot " trackers.   If you wanted too know where someone was on the course you could just ask on 146.580...it was very convenient to know when to expect my runner at the aid station.  I also ran with my radio,  it was entertaining and informative but most of all it gave me the ability to call in a runner in distress if I cam across anything like that fortunately I didn't.

The picture was taken at " Bridger Jack " aid station as I was getting ready for an overnight pacing assignment to the " Shay Mountain " aide station. 

This is Mountain I Ran up ,  30.5 km distance with an overall  +4,600 ft , -2,100 ft elevation change.

More 160 fun

Being heard in the Falkland Islands ... 10,000 + km on 160m is a new one for me.

Some 160 Meter Magic

Been hanging out on 160m for a little over a year...mostly FT8.    I am working nights and have the ham shack on the desktop working the usual few hundred to couple of thousand Ks away stuff...just before break I got into the US Virgin Islands and was being heard in a couple of other Islands.   No I like to see how low I can go power wise and was mostly running 10 Watts tonight.   After my break I threw up another 10 Watt FT8 CQ and IK2DFZ answered reporting a 0 SNR ....huge for 10 Watts.  At first I though it wasn't a real QSO but when I looked at the guys QRZ page it look like it could be legit.   I have heard of 160 magic so I guess it just must have been one of those moments.   I cranked the power up to 100 Watts and completed the QSO...the antenna is an " Inverted L" 500' from the house on the top of a hill which works out to 120' above the house. 

Captured the QSO....

Rocket Launch

Recently attended a super cool rocket launch!  The company I work for ,  Telesat contraced SpaceX to launch our Telstar 19v Satellite.   My love of radio developed into a life long adventure in the Satellite Telecom industry.  Its a  pretty fine line between the job and the hobby...very lucky!

Been Busy

Its been a busy Summer not allot of time for hamming however the days are getting shorter and the temps are dropping so more time will be available soon.

 I managed one small project ,  actually took a better part of a day running yet another run of LDF 4 direct from the Ham Shack all the way up the hill for a total of 500'.  There were 4 chunks in total each one taking a bit of time to join.   The last 20' is a chunk of RG213  terminating in a PL259 connector.   I want to do one more run to the top of the hill joining two more chunks of LDF4 connecting to the 4X1 sw BUT time is running out. 

So far I am using the new run to connect my new 2m/70cm vertical to the shack.    I also have 6el Yagi for 6m to get up there but again I am running out of calendar. 

Dont use 2m/70cm too much so it may just be a temporary thing.  Really want to try a low band fan dipole from the top of the hill.   Suspect it will act like a dipole at a much greater elevation .... to be determined.   Thats one antenna that I can work on over the winter with the new IFL. 

Started WSPRing again  ... up on 80m vert with 5 mw,  smokin! 

Also did a quick comparusion between the 160m and 40m verticals both on 40m.  (  Antennas are co-located at the top of the hill.

NOTE to self...use the 40m Vert vs loading the 160m Vert on 40m when ever possible. 

Looking at some WSPR results the 160m vert on 40m has a higher angle of incident then the 40m vert thus using it for contacts within about 600 km will yield better reports.   Going long the tunes 40m very blows away the 160m vert loaded on 40m by a long shot. 

 I started loading the 160m on 40m last winter whilest doing FT8 remotely.  I do not have the ability  ( YET ) to switch antennas remotely. 


BLUE 1/4 40m Vert
RED    1/4 160m Vert
Green BOTH received

TWO WPSRS done 2 minutes apart around 00:00 GMT OCT 2 ,  2018