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

Gedas w8bya at mchsi.com
Mon Jan 25 19:26:13 EST 2021 

Hiya Ed and Labas to you. To all the others I am 1st generation 
Lithuanian born in Detroit and Ed has some Lithuanian in him so we 
always greet each other with a hello in Lithuanian (Labas).

I was thinking of you as I stayed up late into the night and was hoping 
you were monitoring the band. It would be a real thrill to know my puny 
signal was being heard by you.

I just checked pskreporter and several hours ago at 5:20 pm I noticed I 
had a decode of G0MRF and even Arliss, Goes to show the power of PSK as 
my ambient noise level hovers at -70 dBm using this antenna on receive !

Hurry up and get ur antenna up soon Ed ! I have my friend Jim, W7OUU to 
light the fire under my butt to get my antenna finished as he is almost 
done with his. It will be a neat day when he and I can work each other 
via CW on 630m ttyl 73

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.

On 1/25/2021 5:49 PM, Edward R Cole wrote:
> Gedas,
>
> Labdas.
>
> Interesting reading.
>
> I previously used a 43 by 130 foot inverted-L with multiple wires 
> shorted at each end.  I used a base coil to ground to match resonance 
> and found that a tap about 2-turns up from the ground end matched 
> 50-ohms to a coax run from the amplifier.  My coil is est 680 ohms 
> inductance and used about 2/3 for resonating the inverted-L 
> (inductance not measured).
>
> I used a MFJ-269B antenna analyzer modified to tune 400-800 KHz to 
> find the proper tap point for resonance.  Z=20 ohms + 0j.  I used 
> three 50 to 70  foot runs of 2-foot wide chicken wire on ground for 
> radials.  My 120-foot 1-5/8 inch Heliax cable made a fourth radial 
> since the shield was grounded.  I calculated EIRP=4.15w with 100w 
> output from the amp (converted surplus NDB driven by my K3 at about 
> 0.5mw).
>
> I will not be able to run the Inverted-L this year and going to try a 
> Tee configuration vertical with buried radial wires.  The Tee will be 
> my 80m dipole with parallel open wire.  Parallel line will be shorted 
> to use as a 40-foot high Tee with same base loading coil.  Dipole ends 
> will be 30-foot high on push-up masts.
>
> Using my SDR-IQ as Rx on 490-KHz I typically saw noise floor of -115 
> to -95 dBm.  That was good enough to receive N6LF (WD2XSH/20) on CW in 
> OR and many NDB's out to 1100 miles.  When I have time I am 
> considering to build a 6-foot diameter shielded-loop (rotatable) with 
> preamp for Rx on 630m (not likely until 2022).  I was once copied in 
> Buffalo NY on slow-CW.
>
> KF9D (HI) and GM4OAS are impressive results on WSPR for you.
>
> Not sure when I will have the new antenna QRV (summer-fall 2021, I 
> hope).  I have 2-3 major eme antennas to put up this year which will 
> take a lot of time/money.
>
> Hope my NDB still runs (haven't tested it for several years).
>
> 73, Ed - KL7UW
> KL7UW 630m Topics <http://www.kl7uw.com/630m.htm>
>
> At 10:17 AM 1/25/2021, Gedas wrote:
>
>> 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 athttp://w8bya.com
>> Light travels faster than sound....
>> This is why some people appear bright until you hear them
>> speak.
>>
>>
>> ______________________________________________________________
>> 600MRG mailing list
>> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/600mrg 
>> <http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/600mrg>
>> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm <http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm>
>> Post: mailto:600MRG at mailman.qth.net <mailto:600MRG at mailman.qth.net>
>>
>> This list hosted by: https://www.qsl.net <https://www.qsl.net/>
>> Please help support this email list: https://www.qsl.net/donate.html 
>> <https://www.qsl.net/donate.html>
>
> 73, Ed - KL7UW
> http://www.kl7uw.com
> <http://www.kl7uw.com/>Dubus-NA Business mail:
>   dubususa at gmail.com
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/600mrg/attachments/20210125/2b11c050/attachment.html>

More information about the 600MRG mailing list