18MHz and 24MHz were jammed today with contest refugees (some somewhat over-powered), at least when I went listening around posted SOTA spots. I guess 10 might have been less jammed, but I didn’t try listening there as I’m still trying (and mostly failing) to get morse into my head…
In reply to 2E0YYY:
Sadly, the 817 was no match for the the kilowatt stations on the WARC
bands today.
Aye, the air-waves were awash with high-power stuff. I could just about hear Bill on Win Green this afternoon, almost, but not quite well enough to make contact.
It seems moving 3degs North makes the difference. Can’t remember listening on 18MHz. But 28 was dead most of the day and I heard a few US stations on 24MHz. I was testing an EFHW for 28 and it was fine but nobody to work Same on 24. So down on 21 and quick tweak of the matching knob and I polished off a handful of Russian contest stations. Not bad for 5m of wire, a 2m counterpoise, a T68-6 and a polyvaricon. I thought being heard (1st call most times) when running 5W SSB with no processing was not bad. Should work someone tomorrow on the key on 1 of those bands if they’re open.
28MHz was dead. On 24MHz I heard at least one half of several QSOs, but all, as far as I could tell, from kilowatt-strength DX stations, and as they were obviously in long QSOs I left them to it. On 18MHz I heard several SSB stations, but again I think they were high-power ones (and using a mite more than 3.5kHz bandwidth, it seemed to me).
According to the spots Bill tried calling from G/SC-013 on 18.140MHz, and I did listen around there. It’s possible I could just hear him, but my ears play tricks when a signal’s so near the noise. Earlier I did just hear him at S5 or S6 on 7.125MHz from G/SP-008 but my local noise was about S5 and the splatter from contest stations less than 2kHz either side made things… tricky, and I suspect I might have been a shade close skip-wise, so no contact for me.
Moving North could well be the key, As Mike mentioned, 18MHz was full of contest refugees & 24MHz although not as bad was also busier than a normal weekend. I did pick up weak traces of John on 24MHz but not enough to work him.
Incidentaly, I have also played about with a bit of wire this evening. I have put up about 19 Metres of wire vertically up my 11 metre fishing pole stuck out of an upstairs window & conected the braid of the coax at ground level to a very old Earth point that I assume was used for the original telephone wiring. Would you believe it is actually resonant at the bottom end of 80m & works better for the contest stations than my 80m horizontal loop
In reply to 2E0XTL:
First class effort Bill and well done! The intelligent use of camping van and mountain bike seems to have worked a treat. Plus plenty of big mountain walking days too. Thanks for all contacts and many more great radio days out. How long till you’ve worked all G and GW summits ?
Same on 24. So down on 21 and quick tweak of the matching knob and I polished off a handful of Russian contest stations. Not bad for 5m of wire, a 2m counterpoise, a T68-6 and a polyvaricon. I thought being heard (1st call most times) when running 5W SSB with no processing was not bad. Should work someone tomorrow on the key on 1 of those bands if they’re open.