Dear LF Group,
Had an exciting night and morning on LF, with a new power
amplifier, new modes, and new countries.
Set up the station to work cross-band by connecting the receiver
to a separate 5m vertical antenna; this seemed a bit noisier than
using my normal TX antenna for receive, but does the job, and has
the advantage that the TX antenna tuning can be left alone while
the RX changes between bands. Also connected up my new power
amp, which with about 350W out, gives an antenna current of 2.0A
on 73kHz. My TX antenna is still an 8m high inverted 'L'
With this set-up, was able to work cross-band to HB2ASB and
DK8KW on QRSS cw for two new countries, and ON7YD, who
was using DFCW, the first time I have had a QSO involving this
mode. I gave all stations 'O' reports.
Could also see some other weaker signals on 137kHz, and
tantalisingly saw my own callsign coming back on at least one
occasion, only to disappear into the Loran noise. Also saw G3LDO
sending QRSS on 73kHz.
In the morning, starting about 0750, was able to work G3XTZ,
G3YXM, and G3LDO on normal CW (all 569), since the Rugby TX
was off. Could also hear G2AJV sending his beacon signal (339).
Later, had a cross-band QSO with DF6NM (O). During the QSO,
the noise level started rising, but Markus was still 'M' by the end of
the QSO.
Thanks to all for the listener reports - next time Rugby is off the air,
we could try for some normal CW cross-band QSO's
73k/136k QSO's with Scandinavian stations certainly looks a
possibility - I am certainly willing to have a try at any convenient
time.
Cheers, Jim Moritz
73 de M0BMU
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