Dear LF group,
I transmitted beacon sigs last night from 2145 until 0630. The
signal was roughly 110sec dashes and spaces, with a 400sec
space (containing a 60s CW ID) every 5th dash. Thanks for the
signal reports; I hope OH2LX has the frequencies swapped round,
since my frequency should have been 135.924kHz +/- 0.1Hz at
most, unless something went dreadfully wrong. I checked G3AQC
as being about 1.6Hz down on me. Whose was the 3rd signal I saw
in the early morning?
Earlier, I found propagation conditions seemed unusual. I had
QSO's with G6RO, DL3FDO, and EI0CF. Ron's signal seemed
normal, but the others were subject to quite rapid (a few minutes)
QSB, and both getting very strong at times. I wonder if anyone in
North America observed sigs from DCF39 or similar? Would this
be connected with solar events?
A thought that occurred whilst trying to keep the antenna in tune
during last night's wind was - would the phase shifts caused by the
antenna impedance changing affect reception in very narrow
bandwidths? It would not affect the mean frequency of course, but I
estimated from the scope screen that the phase shift could change
up to 30degrees in a few seconds, which I reckon would amount to
a change in instantaneous frequency of 10's of millihertz.
I would agree with G3AQC about condensation; I find it necessary
to open up my loading coil shelter to let it dry inside whenever the
weather is fine; I also have installed a cheap fan heater inside it
for when the weather is not so fine.
With regard to the other topics raised, as a relative newcomer to
amateur radio, I quite enjoy a CW QSO (although my arm aches
after a while!), and find that excellent results can be achieved
considering the simplicity of the mode. It does enable you to
achieve something from very modest beginnings. But I would not
have bothered to get my amateur ticket just to make CW QSOs -
there are so many more things to try, and challenges to meet in
radio. My non-amateur contempories find it faintly ridiculous that
anyone would bother using CW, or SSB or packet for that matter;
in a world with more communications than we know what to do
with, being able to communicate with fellow amateurs using radio is
not much of a draw. I am told that I would do much better to ring
them on their mobile phone, or send them an E-mail. However, the
nature of radio itself is much more interesting; exploding PAs and
trying to cross the Atlantic using bizzare communications modes is
much more likely to attract the interests of newcomers. Obviously,
diversity and balance is needed to sustain amateur radio, LF or
otherwise.
Cheers, Jim Moritz
73 de M0BMU
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