Weather? What weather??!!!
At least everything got so absolutely soaked that the antenna tuning stayed
constant....... Stations worked on 136kHz using normal speed CW:
Friday 5/3
GW4ALG (20.21UT: gave me 599QRN/QSB, he was 57/89QRN), G8RW (20.38: 579QRN,
579QRN).
Saturday 6/3
PA0LQ (10.22: 569, 569).
Sunday 7/3
DF0WD (08.30: 559, 559), G6RO (09.40: 589, 59+9), G3YXM (10.22: 59+9,
59+9),
PA0LQ (11.44: 569, 469QRN).
The rain started on Friday evening and the band was very noisey indeed with
static crashes, so I was pleased make my first QSO with Bob, G8RW in
Bromley.
He has a very good signal for a newcomer to the band.
Having got up fairly early on Saturday morning, I was not pleased to find
snow falling heavily, with my loading coil bin already covered and the wire
double its normal thickness! By mid-morning there was a couple of cm of the
stuff everywhere and the band sounded very 'strange' on receive. I managed a
good QSO with Harry, but activity was extremely low all day.
By Sunday the snow had turned back to rain.....and more rain......and......
The bottom of our garden was now under several cm of water and I was uneasy
about loading up the wire, but everything seemed OK with no sign of any
arcing. Another good QSO with DF0WD confirmed all was well.
My major event of the weekend came a little later at 09.16UT when I found a
signal calling on 136.9kHz, which turned out to be I5MXX, peaking RST-559. I
quickly called back, but when I went over to receive, there instead was
DF2PY
rattling away with one of his never-ending CQ calls - argh!
So that, as they say, was that........
Later I had another contact with PA0LQ, but the contact was harder than
usual
because he was suffering with noise from a local light dimmer, and half way
through the contact..... yes, DF2PY started calling CQ on almost the same
frequency!
Is anyone else getting alarmed at the number of stations (in all countries)
who are starting to appear on the band with good signals but mediocre or
even atrocious receive systems? It's relatively easy to build (or buy, now)
an effective LF transmitter, but how can we encourage people to work on
their
receive systems and ensure they can receive as well as they radiate?
An interesting challenge in education for sure.
Regards John G4GVC near Leicester, IO92JP
** TX: Synth + 400W RF from modified 'G3YXM' Mosfet PA **
** RX: TS-850S with 3 x CW filters and 0.5ppm TCXO **
** Ant: Inv-L 60m long, 6m high at feed end, 12m high at far end **
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