Hello Graham,
14 April 2017
W1VD amp fed from my U3S, into my usual short (20 foot) vertical with
my big HF horizontal quad loop (450 foot plus) as a top hat. Been
mowing the lawn today and found the rabbits have chewed through some
of the ground wires where they are above ground awaiting me
terminating them properly to bolt to 5 off 8 foot ground rods driven
fully in. I have spent a couple of hours soldering ring terminals on
and repairing damage, tomorrow I hope to bolt the terminals to the 2
inch diameter galvanised steel tubes that form the ground rods.
Previously I just had twisted wire and some Chinese croc clip, very
thin leads, a right hash up ;) No means of measuring antenna current
as yet, another thing on the "to do" list...Amp draws 20 Amps from a
52V switch mode computer supply that is 50 Amp + capable. Given how
short the vertical is, and with it being 6 feet from the end of the
bungalow, it can't be very efficient. When my pal is next over I may
look seriously at how to get some proper height.
The amp got a real work out last night with 1 OPERA32 TX, followed by
4 off WSPR2 TX's then a quick frequency recal and cycle again. Amp
just barely warm, FET's stone cold this morning. Matching transformer
box quite warm, as was the loading coil, both outside in a green
wheelie bin (That's what the council intended them for, isn't it...?
:)) Hope to TX again tonight, OPERA and WSPR2 again. May change
frequency tomorrow to move out of Paul's NIBUG noise, but will ask in
a separate post if anyone has a problem with me re-tuning to 137.565
from my usual 137.559 spot.
It would be VERY nice if some more US stations listened with OPERA as
well as WSPR :) N1BUG's little modified Softrock receiver is doing
brilliantly, and I have now got all the bits to duplicate one here, my
RX side is pretty feeble. Also I can't TX and RX as no means of
changing over the antenna between RX and TX as yet. So listen by day,
TX by night is the best I can do right now. Happy Easter everyone,
have a good weekend.
> Checking the data base this Moring , not just the single spot from
> 00:45 ,
> but a sequence of seven , 5 decodes and 2 correlation detections !
>
> Excellent result Chris, worth all those dud fet's,) , but
> most of the spots are + 6 dB in hand !
>
> what was the carrier power ??
>
> Interesting to see how far down the eastern sea board Chris signal is
> reaching ?
--
Best regards,
Chris mailto:[email protected]
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