[SJRA-Members] 60 Meters

[Bob Beyer]

Hi Rick,

I've played with it just a little.
Mostly FT8 which is conducted on 5.358.5 MHz (center frequency, VFO on
5.357.0)
There is a lot of activity there and if you get on, you will find that being
new, everyone will want to work you.  I've worked a lot of DX here.  As
you'd expect, propagation feels like a cross between 80m and 40m. The band
opens earlier than you'd expect, well before sunset usually.

If you have a 160m antenna, you will mostly likely be able to get an antenna
tuner to load it without too much trouble since it's close to the 3rd
harmonic of 160m (1.8 MHz x 3 = 5.4 MHz).  I use my 160m inverted L.  Other
antennas may work also but I have no other experience.

I recommend a careful re-reading of the unique FCC rules for this band.

One important thing to note is that the maximum permitted power is 100 watts
ERP.
This is not 100w of transmitter output power.  If your antenna has a gain of
3 dB, then you would be restricted to as little as just 50 watts transmitter
output.  However, since the FCC has chosen to use the ERP method, I believe
it is also fair then to include transmission line losses into the ERP
calculation.  If your coax cable (or other transmission line) has 3 dB of
loss at 5.3 MHz and your antenna has 3 dB of gain, then you should be
permitted to use 100w at the transmitter.

I don't know if the FCC specified whether the ERP calculation has to be
calculated using dBi or dBd.

My approach is to make a good faith effort to calculate your ERP taking into
account transmitter output, transmission line losses, and antenna gain.

http://www.arrl.org/60m-channel-allocation


73,
Bob - KE2D


-----Original Message-----
From: sjra-members-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:sjra-members-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Richard Lawn
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2020 10:44 PM
To: SJRA LIST
Subject: [SJRA-Members] 60 Meters

Anyone out there spent any time experimenting with this band. If so I'd
like to hear from you.

Stay safe
Rick, W2JAZ
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