[Elecraft] OT: NVIS with KX3

[AG6QR]

My county's RACES group runs an NVIS net every Tuesday at 6:00pm.  I'm 
not a member, but I occasionally check in as a guest, and often listen 
to the summary reported later in the evening over the local VHF 
repeater.  We're a very hilly county in earthquake country -- RACES 
plans to use ridgetop VHF repeaters for emcom if available, with NVIS HF 
as a backup if the repeaters fail.

The net is always run on 40m, 80m, and one other band, often 60m.  Most 
people are running in the neighborhood of 100W.  I've checked in with a 
KX3 and a longwire loop at 10W.  It usually works, but it's not 
consistent -- then again, nobody's equipment is consistent.  The bands 
vary quite a bit.  Because 6:00pm is nighttime in the winter, and 
daylight in the summer, there is some seasonal variation in which bands 
work best (80m night, 40m day is a good rule of thumb, but it doesn't 
hold 100%).  There is also some apparently random fluctuation in which 
bands work best from one week to the next, probably correlated with 
solar activity.  Sometimes they all work really well.  Other times 
nothing works really well, though we can usually find some way to at 
least relay messages around our county on some band or another.

There's a difference between, "I've managed to make contact with this 
equipment" and "I can very reliably contact the person I need to reach 
with this equipment".  I'm sure a KX3 with a Buddipole can make NVIS 
contacts.  But I'd expect that to get really reliable communications, 
you'll at least want to have various prearranged calling frequencies on 
different bands, and you'll want to continually test your setup by doing 
repeated drills at different times of day, under different solar 
conditions.

I'll echo what others have said about using a good antenna.  I own a 
Buddipole and really like it, but for 40m or 80m, it helps to have 
longer radiating elements.  Using the Buddipole mast, arms, and coils, 
but tying some long sloping wires to the ends to make an inverted vee 
may be one of many strategies you could try.

73 de Rich/AG6QR