Old Versus New

I had a break from the shack this morning as I went along to a classic car show which is held annually in the village. Luckily we were blessed with fine weather, in fact for the three years that I have attended this event the sun has shone.
Looking at the cars from the 1930's up to the 1990s it is clear just how much the technology of the car has evolved. In terms of efficiency, safety and reliability I think it is fair to say that a car from the 1970s would not be able match its modern counterpart.
I don't think we could say the same for our radio transceivers. A Local amateur who I was chatting to over the weekend told me how he had recently purchased a Yaesu FT101ZD from the 1980's. The rig had been advertised as faulty but after getting it home and cleaning it up it seems to be operating well. I popped onto HF to give him a report and I can honestly say that the transmitted signal is as good as any modern gear. Whilst receiver technology has advanced, particularly with the development of SDR rigs it seems that as far as transmitted signals are concerned the old gear can still hold its own!

On the radio front this afternoon heard some EA stations on 10 metres although they were rather weak. It does look though as if the sporadic E season has arrived and it will be worth takinga regular tune around on 10 and 6. Operating on 10 metres does mean switching off the shack computers however as one of then generates around S4 of noise on 10. Thats going to make operating PSK31 on 10 a bit of a challenge!

Keeping an ear open...

The recent sunny weather here in the UK has mixed blessings. Its great to get outside and see some sunshine, but all the gardening and outdoor chores mean less time for radio! still I have been managing to keep an ear on the bands, have a few QSOs and still do a bit of CW practice. I haven't found the higher HF bands to be very lively of late. As a result its been back to 30metres for much of my operating. Still lets hope the Sporadic E season brings us some activity. I hope we will see some 10 metre and six metre activity soon. When 6 metres is open it can be an amazing band. Even with my simple loft dipole on 6 metres last tear some of the signals on the band were very strong. Looking back at my logbook I see that most of the sporadic E contacts I had were in June and July so perhaps we have a while to wait. The most surprising contact of 2009 was for me on 70mhz (4 metres)  FM  where I worked S51DI (Slovenia) using an indoor wire dipole!, it was a true chance contact, he was calling on 70450 we managed to exchange reports and then he was gone.