On 24 May 2009 at 18:24, James Moritz wrote:

> Dear LF Group,
> 
> Just worked G0MRF at 1705utc. Signal was 549 - apparently they are still
> working on the antenna, so might improve yet... Got a good report from
> them, so obviously receiving OK. Good luck for the rest of the
> operation, David and Garo.
> 
> Cheers, Jim Moritz
> 73 de M0BMU 
> 
> 

I listened on and off to David's signal yesterday evening between other 
jobs.

Some observations....

G0MRF (/P but not sending /P, which I thought was a bit confusing) was 
569 here in Bracknell, later peaking 579 but the static was intolerable 
from around 9pm making copy very hard.

I did give David a couple of calls after he finished his QSO with Chris 
G3XIZ but obviously he didn't hear, hardly surprising with my setup and 
in any case I found the tuning had gone off and I had a bad SWR, a 
problem with sharply tuned short verticals.

When David and Chris paused to listen for Laurie G3AQC I briefly heard 
somebody else calling David, very weak, but neither station seemed to 
hear him as they carried on with the QSO before I could hear the 
callsign. I thought from the signal strength it might have been G3CWI 
but I gather Richard never heard David.

Relative signal strengths (not very scientific) for comparison 
purposes:

G0MRF 569
M0BMU 599+
G3XIZ 599+
M0FMT (?) 589
G3KEV 589
G3CWI - 439

And for reference, G3JNT beacon 599 and I could copy 7 of the tones 
last night (before the static came up).

I don't know what sort of antenna David was using, I guess he will fill 
us in later. But if he had a big antenna in a big field, which he 
suggested, my feeling is he was not the big signal we should have 
expected. My copy of Andy's signal ties in with this, Andy is slightly 
nearer but not significantly so the fact that David was considerably 
weaker tells me a lot.

I would also comment that beaconing for long periods while on these 
sort of special trips may not be the most profitable use of the time. I 
guess there were quite a few others wanting to have quick QSOs who did 
not have the chance. If David did go into QSO mode again later he would 
have not found it very productive due to the crippling static. Also the 
problem of some not copying David led to others calling CQs virtually 
on top, as Mal G3KEV did at one time, I guess an unfortunate problem 
with 500kHz for which I don't know the answer.

73 Dave G3YMC

http://www.davesergeant.com