During Saturday I reinstalled the 136kHz station in the shed after
dismantling it for the GB2CPM session the previous weekend. This job
takes about an hour because all the remote control bits have to be
reconnected and tested. Found there was a problem with the coax
feedline from the receiver preselector in the shed to the receiver in
the house, reducing the signal levels by 35 to 40dB.
Later that evening around 2030 carried on trying to fix the fault.
Spectrogram was connected to the receiver and I saw two good signals
in spite of the cable fault. One was ON4ZK and the other ...K1FIG.
Hmm.... not April the first!
Went down to the shed and QSYed the TX to the QRS band and came back
to see the mystery callsign was OK1FIG. Gave him a call (while at the
same time checking the e-mail to see all the excitement I had missed)
and received an 'O'. After I sent an 'O' I saw the request for a fast
CW and saw the fast CW on the screen but I could hear nothing on the
receiver but white noise and an occasional burst of static due to the
cable fault. It is amazing that Spectrogram can pull these signals
out of noise like this.
The cable fault is fixed now but:
Lesson - to keep my equipment on the ball to be ready for the unexpected.
Thank you for the QSO Petr
--
Regards, Peter, G3LDO
<[email protected]>
|
