Normally I use the long wire for HF as it hears better with lower noise than the vertical, however on 12/10m the vertical definately has the edge, which it should do really.
I keep hearing about 10m opening up and each time I goto the PSKy freq's, nothing until around 1630 UTC when I see some signals from the Caribbean and S.America.
This is really exciting as in a past life I have worked a lot of S.America on 11m.
I managed to contact NP4BM in Peurto Rico on 10m PSK31, then KP4ED on 12m RTTY, also in Peurto Rico.
Tried to contact the South Americans, but nothing as yet.
It was nice the use the old bird again, I had this antenna on 2 houses, so over 12 years now, it's a little bent up and it lost one of it's eight legs a few years ago.
Perhaps it will get some more use soon, hope so.
Evening Paul,
ReplyDeleteVery nice PSK and RTTY contacts. I really must give these higher bands a go. Haven't been on HF for a few days as doing lots of marine listening.
Have a good weekend, 73 Adam
Hi Adam, I am slowly getting used to the european callsigns, so seeing some I dont recognise is very exciting !
ReplyDeleteI caught up with Andy and Keith from the club last night, and we went on 17m, no dx, but good to chinwag, what bands can you get on apart from 20 and 40m ?
73 for now, Paul.
Hi Paul, great to see you really get your signal out on 10/12m. My favourite is the 10m band. But do not have a good antenna up for that band at that the moment. I use to have a 6 element logcell yagi and made a lot of QSOs a few years ago. You can even find a pile-up video on 10m on youtube from my old shack. When I became a licensed amateur it cost me a year to get used to the amateur prefix system. I was used to the number prefixes which are used on 11m, you did too probabely. 73, Bas
ReplyDeleteHi Bas, yes lets see if I can remember, 3 Brazil, 4 Argentina, 5 Chile I think.
ReplyDeleteIt was really nice hearing some signals and the qsb on 10 is very different, very hush and quiet, there's something very special about 10/11m, perhaps it's nostalgia, I don't know.
So you had a 6 ele Yagi, that would be a monster for 11m, some gain to be had there, you must of had a large plot for that.
I had an easy ssb qso on 40m into the east of England, though I struggled to be heard in the NW of England, then 20 minutes later was putting a signal out on 10m, bizarre but brilliant.
Well Paul, it was not a fullsize 6 element. See some pictures here....5 is Venezuela I believe ;-). 73, Bas
ReplyDeleteLOL Bas, what an absolute monster, I love it !!!
ReplyDeleteYou said you used to have the yagi, what happened to it ?
73
Paul.
And yes Venezuela sounds about right for 5 division, been a long time, last cycle.
Well, Paul, if you get back into the archives of my blog you will read that I've moved to another house in 2008. Since there is a lot to do at this new property I didn't have time to make a proper antenna setup/shack. So, although I make some nice DX I still use some home made emergency antennas. The 6 elem. is in pieces somewhere in my garage.
ReplyDelete73, Bas