[600MRG] W8BYA Summary - Jan 25, 2021 - 630m

Mon Jan 25 16:15:07 EST 2021

Hi Gedas. Glad to hear about your success with the new antenna. Yep, vertical polarization beats all on LF/MF in my experience. For reception I found that the LNV [low noise vertical] and the E-probes are better than the TX vertical, but the eprobes need to be away from other antennas and especially away from the house electrical wiring.

You are off to a great adventure, Gedas!! Congrats...

73
Neil, w0yse, DN41ah
North Ogden, Utah 84414

My ham radio website: http://w0yse.webs.com/
<http://wg2xsv.webs.com>
My Faith website: http://neilsfaith.webs.com/

________________________________
From: 600mrg-bounces at mailman.qth.net <600mrg-bounces at mailman.qth.net> on behalf of Gedas <w8bya at mchsi.com>
Sent: Monday, January 25, 2021 11:17 AM
To: 600MRG at mailman.qth.net <600MRG at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: [600MRG] W8BYA Summary - Jan 25, 2021 - 630m

I wanted to share some observations & reports of my first night back on 630m. I was not QRV last year and the year before that was my 1st year on the band so I do not have a lot of experience.

I started sending WSPR signals out around my local sunset last night and ceased around 5:45 AM this morning. This was the 1st time using the new, short inv-L ant vs. my previous 600' Inv-V antenna with feedpoint at 85'. This Inv-L has it's feedpoint 5' above ground using a vertical radiator of 60' and a single horizontal capacity hat approx 185' long. There is a ~300 uH inductor at the base of the vertical.

The antenna is fed against a pair of opposing 165' elevated radials made of aluminum fence wire. The antenna being within several feet of a 85' tower and many antennas presented a very unexpected and high feedpoint impedance of ~76 ohms ! This required me to design and build up a low-pass L-matching network to bring the SWR down to 1:1. The matching network is mounted directly below the loading coil also 5' off the ground.

No surprise here but the Inv-L is not a good antenna as far as low noise pick-up so I will be experimenting with some better alternatives. Noise levels on my Flex 5000 averaged S9 to S9+10 dB all night.

For transmitting being mostly vertically polarized was a huge advantage over the mostly horizontally polarized signal I was using several years ago when I tried 630m for the first time with the Inv-V.

After looking over the reports I was really surprised to see many 1000+ km reception reports from stations still transmitting this morning. For example my last reception of Arliss (W7XU) occurred at 11:40 AM ! Hard to believe getting decodes at almost noon time from that far away. Arliss must have one heck of an awesome transmit setup.

Looking for even further distances I found my last decode of K0KE in DM79 at 1660 km occurring at 9:18 AM local ! The sun was well, well up by then. Pretty cool. And there were MANY receptions of W7XU and K0KE.

Highlights for me were being heard by K9FD receiving me at -21 at 3:30 AM (7003 km), as well as being heard several times by GM4OAS at 5716 km. I was able to receive G0MRF (6183 km) a half dozen times but he was not able to hear me. I was also thrilled at seeing that N6LF at ~3000 km heard me at a -9 dB.

As far as being heard & hearing within NA the summary looks like this:

W8BYA
Hearing: AA8HS, AE2EA, G0MRF, K0KE, K2BLA, K3RWR, K4BYN, K8HTL, K9MRI, KE7A, KN8DMK, N3HSK, NV4X, VE9GJ, W0IOO, W3TS, W4BCX, W4KZK, W7XU, WA3U, WA9CGZ, WB0TEM, WB3AVN, WD8DAS.

Heard by: AA1A, AA5AM, AA8HS, AE2EA, AK0SK, GM4OAS, K0KE, K1HTV-4, K1RA-BB, K1RA-PI, K2ZN, K3CLT, K3KQV, K3MF, K3RWR, K3SIW/2, K4BYN, K4RCG, K5KHK, K5VR, K8YBU, K9AN, K9ANF, K9FD, K9IMM, K9MRI, K9XT, KA1LM, KA1R, KD2OM, KD3UY, KD9OWT, KE7A, KF4HCW, KF8QL, KF9KV, KI7KG, KI8FW, KJ6MKI, KK6PR, KM5SW, KR7O, N0LBY, N2HQI, N3HSK, N6GN/K, N6IO/K, N6LF, N7JYS, N8IT, N8UR, N9RU, NO3M, NV4X, NY4Q, VA3ROM, VA7JX, VA7MM, VE2UG, VE3EAR, VE3HOA, VE3MNA, VE6ARS, VE6JY, VE9GJ, W0AY, W0ETH, W0IOO, W0PXM, W1EQX, W1NJC, W1XP, W1XP/1, W3ENR, W3PM, W3TS, W4BCX, W4KEL, W4KZK, W5EST, W6UV, W7XU, W9RAN, W9XA, WA2TP, WA2ZKD, WA3TTS, WA3U, WA3U/W, WA9CGZ, WA9EIC, WA9NWW, WA9WTK, WB0TEM, WB3AVN, WB5PDQ, WB6YAZ, WB9WON, WD4ELG, WS3W, WV5L, WY7BUD

All in all it was a very fun night. The SWR on the antenna varied from a 1:1 to 1.8:1 and this is due to the ceramic padding capacitors I am using in my matching network. As long as I kept my TPO to about 20-25W the SWR remained low. I need to replace those caps. At this point I will concentrate on making QSO's. I am available via CW or digital if anyone needs Indiana or my grid on 630m. TU all, 73.

Not sure if my coverage map will make it as an attachment but I added it in as a JPG.

Gedas, W8BYA EN70JT

Gallery at http://w8bya.com
Light travels faster than sound....
This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

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