Hi gang,

I've been following the discussions and reading around on the web for
the last few weeks, after discovering rather belatedly that OFCOM had
started issuing permits for 500kHz.

My location is well offshore in the north sea, and some considerable
distance from the active stations in the UK. Added to this is the fact
that at this time of year we don't get any "night" at this latitude. I
have listened around the "band" on a few occasions (eg when I've seen
postings indicating there's some activity) using a 1m dia tuned MF loop
I knocked together for the purpose. I've not heard anything yet. Part of
the problem may also be a slight deafness problem with my AR7030 which
should soon be rectified when the replacement parts for the front end
filter & new first mixer IC arrive from AOR. It's currently about 10dB
less sensitive than it should be after an accident with an antenna
splitter and in IC706 (!)

I've been following the chat on the reflector, and I take it that there
is some actual "real time CW QSO" activity and not just QRSS beacons and
the like?

I've just grabbed a copy of the cct for Jim M0BMU's CW transmitter and
will start gathering bits together.

At present my only HF antenna is a GP that was originally a 20m 1/4
wave, with feed point 2m agl, fed against 3 sloping radials. I recently
added 3 capacity hat wires to drop its resonance to 30m as I prefer that
band over 20m.

I guess even with some base loading it's going to be a) too short and b)
lacking in the grounding department?

I can possibly put up an inverted with the top 8m AGL and 40m long for
TXing, as there's an old electricity pole, unused, about 45m from the
house. There are no trees to use as supports here! I only have one
neighbour, who's house is about 60m from mine, for about 2 miles in any
direction, so EMC shouldn't be a problem!

Does anyone have any feelings as to whether I'm too far from
civilisation to make this worthwhile? I'm exclusively a QRP CW OP (on
HF) but 100mW erp on 500kHz might be pushing it from this remote
location?

Regards,

John GM4SLV

--
G-GRP-Club 2377, QRP-ARCI 12384, SKCC 3214
Member : RSGB, ARRL
Elecraft : K2 #5542 / K1 #1672
Shetland Islands (EU-012) IP90GG