Saturday, 24 October 2009

Conditions or Activity?

I'm not a great fan of contests but they are a useful way of getting some contacts in the log as contesters want to work as many stations as possible! I had a tune around the HF bands this morning and early afternoon and found the CQ Worldwide contest underway.
I have been at this QTH now for 18 months and since then I don't think I have had one contact on 15 metres. Maybe I have not been around at the right time but whenever I have tuned the band its been dead. Today I have been working 15 metres and the band has been full of contest stations. Mainly European stuff but I did work into Tunisia and heard (but not worked) a stateside station. On 10 metres there were a few Europeans again and I heard (but sadly could not work!) ZS9X, A surprise signal on 10 metres.
All this makes me think, when we think the higher bands are dead  are they really dead or is it simply a lack of activity? I think I should call CQ more often.

At least today I was able to give my ground mounted vertical, the HYgain AV12 an airing. It seems to work quite well, although I have never been able to get the tuning quite right on 15m. I will have another go at it in the spring but at best the SWR on 15M is around 2:1. It still seems to work OK though and the matching is pretty good on 20 metres and 10m. The picture shows the AV 12 ground mounted in the corner of my garden. Its pretty low profile but I have been toying with the idea of mounting it on a pole and risking the wrath of the neighbours.....maybe next year!
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3 comments:

  1. QRP Station M6RDP25 October 2009 at 09:52

    Morning Kevin, Great blog! I love the look of that AV-12 vertical in your garden. I will have a bash on 15M lately though my SWRs are not as good as I would like on the higher bands and I need to do some tweaking of the Par End Fedz in a week or so. BTW, How many watts do you run normally? Bye for now, Adam

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  2. GW0KIG25 October 2009 at 18:16

    Hi Adam,

    Thanks for the comments. This weekend I have been running between 50 and 100 watts.I have worked quite a few contest stations who have asked me to repeat my call 3 or 4 times and have still given me a 59 report!! Some of these guys are running very high power and big beams so to be honest the power at our end doesn't make that much difference. On PSK I normally run 20-30 watts or less.

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  3. Adam26 October 2009 at 09:03

    Yeah, I noticed one station in Siberia whom I heard but sadly didn't contact had a huge field full of towers and beams. Looked like ABCs transmitter site in Shepparton! Like Paul (PC4T) said, they can hear a mouse move in your back garden!

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