[Wswss] Fw: TNX Ralph de ICW in LC

[Ralph Bergman]

7 July 2006

Ralph:

Tnx for relaying my message abt W6GGV to WSWSS, etc. I thought he was a
goner last time he was hospitalized, but survived long enough for us to
know he was a fighter. R.I.P.! Not many of his type left.

About 3 weeks ago, I engaged a contractor to do my ham tower bases and a
hardscape installation in the our back yard. Last, heard, he had a death
in the family, and my project was ignored.

What will come of this is being considered. Being old is a bitch. I still
am able to work
fairly hard, but even with a neighborhood 16 yr old helper, it isn't
easy. I need 2 towers.
The county here will only allow me to put them up 30 ft. unguyed, and
with an approved base. I can attach them to my house, but the house will
get messed up
enough to be unsatisfactory. The area where the towers are to be located
is fairly small and cluttered with fruit trees up to 12 ft.

There is virtually no activity here above 2M, and even that is limited to
contests, in which a few ops turn their radios from FM mode to SSB for
operation on 144.200, of which nobody knows where the frequency really
is. That is good and bad. I've only had 2 QSO's on 432 "weak signal,":
and both were local. I haven;t seen very many 2M horizontal yagis, and
none on 432. What is reallty amazing is that our local radio club has
over 100 members, with few interested in anything above 6M. If/when I get
my antennas up, I'll be virtually alone except for a few ops. There is a
2M guy over in Silver City west of me, that has the capability to work
deep into AZ and into SW CO.--In Deming, abt 60 mi. west of here, there
are several 6M ops and on occasion, somebody over there gets on 2M. A lot
of W6's would probably like having the bands to themselves, but it's easy
to wish for and hard to tolerate for long periods. In actuality, I need
75 ft. towers just to get out of the area when there is no contesting.

I have a 50 ft. tower which I'm saving for the up-coming solar cycle on
HF. Even that has to be mounted  over on the other side of the house and
fed with long feed and rotor cables. This assumes of course that I'll be
around to work 10M into Europe and other exotics when the time comes.

IN a way I'm glad that I wated till the bottom of the current solar cycle
to move. This will give me time to set up.

As regards 1296. Abt the only regular known possibility is to work Steve,
W7CI in Sierra Vista, AZand possible locals like a guy in Alamagordo who
has 8W on 1296 at 60 mi away. Of course, there are occasional contesters
who get on high mountain peaks in E. AZ 432 and 222 is good into Tucson
and Phoenix on occasion.
who have 1296 with them. Typically, the gear doesn't work, so the locals
tell me.

There is no local activity on 222, including FM. Even 432 has no
repeaters in the area. As far as activity in El :Paso is concerned, it is
limited to 6M. On my present antenna, I can hear the 2 active 6M stations
barely. There is only FM on 2M in Juarez,
Mex., and they are using only "local type" antennas. I have yet to hear
one, even tho they are only 40 mi. away. Also, ot her than El :Paso, the
nearest Texas station worked is about 450 mi. away. I know there is a
path to Albuquerque from here, but that will have to wait until I can get
some antennas up. I hear they even have some 10GHz activity up there.

We hear all kinds of 2M activity on FM here locally, suggesting relocated
snow birds and transplanted 6's & 7's. Everyone has antenna problems as
wind gusts here sometimes exceed 100 MPH. That scares a lot of hams down
to simple antennas. Also, the county is very reluctant and sometimes
difficult when it comes to ham antenna installations. The maximum height
of ham antennas here is 75 ft., but that includes the antenna mast and
the antennas.

Ralph, that's all for now. Thanks for your interest and hope you are
doing well. Have you thought abt trying digital?I worked 2 1296 stations
on FSK441 from Las Vegas, N6RMJ and AF6O(before we had the bru haha).
Stations using this mode have to have
their frequency locked within in 100Hz, A lot of guys refused skeds with
me as they were not sue if they could spot the sked frequency within
100Hz, no sure thier L.O. was good enough to stay put. I was able to work
the above stations even tho there was considerable drift on their
signals. After they got "settled," there was no problem.
I tried to get skeds to work over the Sierras, but interest was low. I
did manage to workabt 6 stations in the Sacramento & San Joaquin Valley's
and the S.F. Bay area on FSK-441 on 222 & 432. Going up to 1296 was a
problem for most.

I gave up digital for the time being, as I ran out of stations to work on
222 & 432. When I get set up here, I will probably go back to digital, as
"ground wave/tropo" isn't
popular or readily available.

That's all for now. Keep on truckin'!

73, Al,. ICW in LC