When it comes to WSPR it all about what you hear not how you are heard. Anyone can pump out allot of power into a so so antenna and be herd everywhere but if you really want to know how your station is working compare what you hear to others.
Below is a 10 min RX on 20 meters. I arbitrarily choose a bunch of stations as a comparison
The antenna is my 160m inverted L on the top of the hill 500' from the Ham Shack. There are 8 1/4 wave radials. The vertical part of the antenna is 33' and the antenna runs North South.
My Yaesu FT450 packed it in a few months outside of the warranty. Initially the front display dimmed and there was a hum in the audio and although it was still functional it was marginal. The failure occurred after the house was coll for a week while I was on a Skiing Vacation. I took the radio apart , checked connections and reseated and cleaned everything that I could but it didn't make any difference.
I contacted Radioworld for a referral to a repair depot and much to my surprise they do the repairs there! Boxed it up and mailed it off to Toronto. A week and a half later I hadn't heard anything and was going to follow up with them but I didn't have too ... the radio showed up in the mail. Not hearing anything I figured I would open the box and there would be a notice " Beyond economical repair". Much to my surprise the note said " replaced voltage regulator ". I was a little sheepish , shoudl have clued into the dull display top check the voltage!!!! An even greater surprise was not being billed, yeah they did it for free and even ate the shipping! I have purchased many things from Radio World over the years , perhaps that weighed in or maybe it was that I was a few months out of warrenty who knows the bottom line is the radio is back up and I am FT8ing away again.
Thanks for the great service Radio World ... Radioworld.
Had a nice 6m opening this evening. Around 01:30 6m was open between Southern Ontario and Texas. The activity was super spotty , it would fade out then come back sometimes for 10s of minutes and sometimes for 10s of seconds. When Texas faded out there was a short opening to the West , mid - West working a Colorado station ... the opening here was pretty short! The opening ended with a rather spectacular hour and a bit opening towards Manitoba signals in the +20 db SNR values. Worked two guys in Winnipeg. As 6 was closing I asked the VE4s to QSY to 10 meters where I went on to work one of the Winnipeg stations again.
Its a radio blog but there is a story to be told. Growing up in the 60's I was a huge fan of the Gemini and Apollo programs. My Grandfather worked as a Tech at the Goddard Space Flight Center and provided me with a constant stream of NASA literature through this era. In the early 70's he gave me my first " Ham Radio" a single 6146 Tube CW Transmitter. I eventually teamed this up with a receiver and used it for the first year of hamming. Radios and rockets were a natural mix. Worked the MIR Space Station , loved RS10/11 even played with some of the X.25 birds. I always loved looking at the night sky and loved identifying various LEOs over the years.
Going to a launch was a bucket list item and when the invite came I jumped at the opportunity to attend the Telstar 18V Launch at the Kennedy Space Center.
Its all started with a welcome kit including a " VIP " badge that we were required to wear at all times. It was pretty cool walking through the exhibits as a tourist wearing this badge!
Prior to the launch we got to spend some time with the rocket. They had a photographer there and provided us with the pictures.
SpaceX gave us the 101 on the Falcon 9 Rocket and what to expect in the hours leading up to the launch.
We watched the launch from the top of a 5 story NASA building about 5 miles from the Launch Pad
The launch was perfect... it was far brighter then I expected but not as loud as I was expecting.
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!
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.
