[Boatanchors] The Silence of the Bands.

[Robert Nickels]

On 9/5/2017 3:22 PM, Brian Hemmis wrote:
>   JT-65 and now FT-8 digital modes.

My wspr beacon has been running all day on 30 meters with the whopping 
power of 40 milliwatts into a dipole and is being heard all over the 
eastern US and Canada, in Texas and just outside Edmunton in the past 12 
hours.   Wspr stands for "weak signal propagation reporter", so if weak 
signals can be heard it stands to reason that propagation is favorable 
forstronger ones to the same area.  Anyone can go to www.wsprnet.org and 
look at the map to see who is being heard where on any given band.

I'm on 40 meters with a group most every night and know very well how 
the conditions on that band change from day to day, week to week.   But 
with stations scattered all around the US there's never a night that at 
least some of us can hear others and have a QSO, typically using 100 
watts or so, and oftentimes using portable setups with compromise antennas.

73, Bob W9RAN