[Elecraft] please, short listen in the HAM bands

[Geoffrey Mackenzie-Kennedy]

Hello Mike, you wrote:

Suppose you were out to sea,  a long way from any noise, would any of those
tiny  hand held sets still work like the 6m, 2m, 70cm or do they need to use
repeaters on land to go very far.

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It would be very difficult to add anything to what Ron, AC7AC,  has said,
but I would like to make comment on one form of propagation that allows long
distance contacts to be made using very low power, particularly on 6m.  It
is called 'Sporadic E',  and although it appears most frequently during May,
June, July and December, throughout a solar cycle, it can appear during any
month and at any time of the day or night. What happens, it is believed, is
that parts of the E layer in the ionosphere become ionized sufficiently to
reflect the VHF RF signal back to earth, and if these parts or patches
become small, the skip is very selective - people just miles apart do not
hear the same thing. Sometimes a number of patches will be in the right
places to allow the signal to skip along over several hops, or even more
interesting a signal seems to become stuck up there, only coming back to
earth at some great distance. When this happens, signals say one hop away
are not heard.

What actually happens is still a bit of a mystery. It has been reported, and
I have only heard this happen twice, a Sporadic E opening will occur on 2m
and hours later on 6m, but this is very rare and does not "obey the rules".
What causes 'Sporadic E' is as yet not understood, although many good ideas
have been put forward.

The important thing is that with very low power, it is possible to have a
lot of fun during a 'Sporadic E' opening on 6m. I understand that there is a
G who never runs more than 250mW on 6m.

Back in 1958, somebody on Guam caused near panic on the West Coast. He had
wound up some military AM QRP rig on 6m to see whether it worked. It did.
Ron's experience reminded me of this episode, although Guam - W6 would have
been by F2 in 1958, and all of us on the East Coast prayed no doubt.

73, Geoff
GM4ESD