[Elecraft] As good as it gets...for now?

[Stephen W. Kercel]

Rod:

There several things you left unsaid in your message, most 
critically, the band and time of day on which you have tried and 
failed to hear signals.

BTW, tuning across the band and hearing 5 or 6 signals is not too bad 
these days. Surely, you should be able to work one of those. By the 
time you finish that QSO and tune across the band again, you'll still 
hear 5 or 6 signals, but usually one of the old signals will have 
faded out and a new one has faded in. I find that I may only hear 5 
or 6 signals at any given time on 80 m CW , but somehow end up with a 
dozen QSOs by the time I decide to pack it in.

Even with the current poor solar activity, three QSOs and a failed 
sked is not as good as it gets. This past weekend, in the RAC test, 
from my coastal Maine QTH, I made 145 QSOs (including several to 
W7/VE7 land) with my K2 running 5 Watts out, mostly on 80 meters.

I have no notion of what a PW-1 is, but the fact that an antenna 
works great in one location is no assurance that it will do so in 
another. That's the reason that the people who hawk verticals as high 
performance DX antennas usually report results from seaside QTHs.

Nevertheless, I doubt that the antenna is your problem. If your 
antenna were performing poorly, you should be hearing a lot of 
stations who perversely fail to hear you.

Your valley QTH is not a blessing, but neither is it a back breaker.

Your chances of hearing the NCDXF beacons above 20 meters are not 
very great given the low sunspot activity. If you listen very 
systematically at various times throughout the day, you might hear a 
few. Even on 20 meters, you will hear only a few of the beacons for 
only a limited amount of time each day.

Given the winter and low solar conditions, 20 meters is typically 
open only during daylight hours, with a bit of a lull between local 
noon and 2 pm. Some days 15 meters comes open in the afternoons; I 
worked a couple of VE6 stations on 15 m during the RAC test.

30 meters is open a lot (as witness your success hearing WWV), 
especially in the late afternoons, but not too many hams get on 
there. If you have a receiver that covers the other WWV and CHU 
frequencies, listen to them as well. CHU is close enough to the 80 
and 40 meter band edges that you should be able to hear it on your 
K2. If you can hear CHU, then you know the low bands are open to the east.

Even 40 meters is marginal these days. From about 3:00 to 9:00 pm 
local time is the best time to hear 40 meter activity. Even then, you 
need to tune around a lot, and call CQ a lot. There are some 
amazingly strong signals that pop out of a seemingly dead band.

After dark, 80 meters is the currently longest open band; it is 
usually open to somewhere through all the night-time hours. Again, 
listen a lot and call CQ a lot. Even if the band is not bristling 
with signals, there is activity out there.

Another thing to remember, follow the daily sunspot activity. Most of 
the time the flux is below 70, often closer to 65 (64 is supposedly 
the theoretical minimum). Occasionally a new sunspot appears for a 
day or two, the flux pops up to about 90, and the band openings 
become much stronger for that time.

BTW my comments apply only to the CW segments of the bands. I have no 
clue what the level of activity is audible on the phone bands and no 
interest in finding out.

Anyway, your past results are not as good as it gets. Since the QTH, 
antenna and rig are invariant, to get better results, you might need 
to become a more serious student of propagation.

73, HNY, and good luck,

Steve Kercel
AA4AK


At 11:48 AM 12/31/2007, rcerkon at gmail.com wrote:
>Folks,
>
>After a 2+ year hiatus from "RadioActivity", I finished up a K2 build,
>and tried getting on the air a bit--UGH dismal results! During the
>recent ARCI Homebrew Sprint I made 3 contacts, 1 in WA and 2 in ID,
>I'm in OR. Me and a friend back in CO have tried two or three times
>for a scheduled QSO--no luck we could just barley hear each other. One
>one of those attepts my freind was using a beam and 100W of power.
>More troubling is the lack of signals I'm hearing. Before each of the
>activities I mentioned I would tune around the bands to assess band
>conditions, I could hear no more than 5 or 6 other stations. I
>couldn't hear any of the NCDXF beacons--Are they still operational? I
>can hear WWV @ 10MHz 5x9.
>
>Set up here is QRP K2, and a Superantennas PW-1. Now before everybody
>jumps on the PW-1--NO PW-1/ANY OTHER ANTENNA  BASHING!!! I mean it!
>:-) I had a PW-1 in CO and it worked great! ( see
><http://www.elecraft.com/PictureGallery/NewPics/n0rc_vw_foxhound_front.jpg>
>for one example)
>
>Do I have a problem with my K2--I'm thinking not. With an XG-1 signal
>generator set to 1uV I can hear it fine on 40, and the harmonics on 20
>and 15m.
>
>Is it my QTH? I have a city lot, the back yard is only 9m x 6m (30' X
>20'), surrounded by one story houses on each side. The PW-1 in placed
>in the center. Further, I live in a river valley abt 275m (900Ft) ASL.
>The valley is surrounded by low mountains 900-1200m (3-4k Ft) AL abt
>10 miles away.
>
>I have no other radio equipment, (or access to) to try A/B
>comparisons. I can not and will not change my antenna setup, I want
>nothing permanent outside. I have no room to set up take down
>temporary wire antennas. I WILL NOT MOVE TO A DIFFERENT QTH. I WILL
>NOT SPEND ANYMORE MONEY ON RADIO EQUIPMENT--I am at an
>economic/financial sweet spot all things [radio/non-radio] considered.
>
>So given my circumstances and the current lull in solar activity...
>
>Is this as good as it gets?
>--
>73 Rod, Ai7NN  ~*~*~Happy Holidays~*~*~
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