The AM Forum

75 Meters is hopping.
AM OSOs on 3875, 3880, 3885, and 3890.  Some disgruntled nimrod am-hating slopbucketeer sending F*** Y** on CW on top of the AM QSO on 3890.  Probably one of the knuckle-dragging mental giants from 3892.  Anyway...great to hear all the AM activity on Halloween night.  Brings out all the cool people and all the nuts as well to harass them  ;D ;D ::)

73,  Jack, W9GT

Hey....The "Mighty Elmac" Net going on 3885 too.  Mike N8ECR MC.  Lots of good sounding signals...Thom ur new rig sounds good here in Indiana.

73,  Jack, W9GT

Yuppir.... Knucle draggin' CW operator, the one that always likes to chime in on 3.992 with his knuckle draggin' keyer ... Can't remember his call.

Despite the band conditions, There was alot of AM activity and it was good to hear... Especially the QSO on 3.990 .. Those guys on 3.992 got their TREAT for the night!

Jack, you sounded good into Western Pa this evening...  Nice Signal!


73's.......... Were off to Chicago!

Hey Kevin,

How's the new 4-1000 amp doing for you?

73,
Ellen - AF9J

big signals into wv this evening.  :)

Later on, activity thinned out.  By 0400 GMT, about the only AM I heard on the band was at 3880.  The group at 3720 was gone.  Signals of all modes throughout the entire band were sparse.

I think condx were poor, despite the lack of QRN.  Poor ionospheric propagation may have been the reason the QRN was so low.  The entire band seemed  covered with the hissing of some kind of white noise.

The DRM signal at 3990-4000 was barely audible, indicating poor propagation to Europe.

I called CQ on 3885, but got no response.  Didn't bother to retune to the 3700 vicinity.

Lately, activity in the Ghetto seems to have thinned out and I'm  hearing more down below.  That's a good sign.  The Ghetto frequencies  have been much more usable with activity more spread out.

I listened on 160, but all signals were weak.

Earlier in the evening 3890 was clear, so I made a brief test transmission.  Ken, KA5RHK came back and we talked for a few minutes.  Tom, KA1ZGC called in, but I had to QRT for supper so didn't stay in long.  No slopbucket QRM from 3892.

There were a bunch of us on 3718 last night.  Quiet and no interference.

I've been led to believe CW ops always exhibited the epitome of courtesy and there was NEVER any CW jamming.  ;)

Hi John.... yup, after you and HUZ booked Rick and I carried on for a while. We signed and Todd KAQ came wandering back in for a few so I stayed a bit. After that I was ready to turn things off and ED AA8DC hollared " Can anybody hear me ???"

Ed and I had a nice 15 minute Q with his 20 watts. Good nite all around.

Can't wait ta hear the DERB swingin' the monkey again !! Won't be long now eh Derb ??

2INR was still MIA at 10:45 PM  ;D

Izzat when y'all we're getting off?  Man, that's only 9:45pm, here.

Oh, well... from 9 till 10, I'll gamble with my life for one night of long distant AM...

3.705 ~ 3.725?

I doubt the QRM'er is regularly active as a CW operator.  Not a no-code General either. I have heard CW used many times over the years to deliberately QRM inside the phone band.  Probably afraid someone would recognise his voice on SSB.  Good possibility his licence class was Extra.

Good to see a lot of AM activity around the band! Every 5 kcs seems like it would be difficult at best, but if you're being bombarded with jamming and other noise I guess the receiver is probably locked down pretty narrow anyhow.

We had a good group between 3720-3716 last night, some noise but not enough to keep 'HUZ from opening up his SX-17. I think you're right, Don: conditions last night were sketchy up this way as the night progessed, not as stable and quiet as some nights recently. At one point Brent dropped almost into the noise for a while, but a half hour later he was 20 over again. Overall it was still a decent evening of air time.

One of the arguments or complaints I recall hearing in the past was 'lack of room' or too many people in a small chunk of spectrum. With the additional phone spectrum available, it looks like more folks are getting on AM or back into the mode after an absence.


Usually around there somewhere, Geoff. Figure 05-40, just to be safe. Friday night should be a good time, more neighbors might be out on the town for the evening.

Taking into account daylight shifting time, that's only 0245 GMT, in reality 8:45pm here.  It has been dark for only a couple of hours. Maybe that's why everyone on the band seems to go to roost with the chickens these days.

What happened to the historic nocturnal emissions on 75?

hey buddly,

Frank-o- tron is still working on the rig. got  order in for a w7fg dipole houl b here in  few days. Still need a big maul so I can drop that red cartoon hammer down and say:

http://amfone.net/index.php?ind=media&op=file_view&iden=168

Well, Don... some of the 'leather lungs' of those times are no longer with us.  K5LLK/Bill, K5MZH/Koby, W5PYT/Ozona Bob, WD5EHS/Sulpher John, Phil/KD7EB (and I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting) are now all silent keys.  That was a good -hour- of transmission time, right there.  Others, like WA3PUN and K5SWK while still kickin', don't seem to get on anymore.  Don't hear Darrell/WA5VGO, Mike/K5FZ (now W5MP/TI3), Lee/W0VT on the air anymore.  John/WA5BXO is married, raising two boys that are now teen-ager's (nearly), I've grown a little older, and wiser, and now have nightmares of a neighborhood lynch-party headed down the street with a bucket of hot-tar, a sack full of feathers and a noose, if I cut loose with a quarter kw (or better) during 'prime-time'.

Can't wait till I get something built out in the country.  Nearest neighbor is 500 yards away.

Oh, well... you've always got Ken/KA5RHK to talk to. 

;-)

Very interesting conditions last night on 75.

Enjoyed the Elmac net. I had a very good copy on pretty much everbody.

After the net closed, things got even more interesting. By this time, the short-haul conditions had died. Jack K9ACT and I shot the 10-1000 for a while, then a few minutes after we signed, I heard a very manly signal slightly downband. I tuned down and, much to my suprise, it was Gary, WA1OXT, absolutely strapping in.

I found this quite interesting, since I had already lost the rest of 1-land a couple of hours before, but there was Gary like it was broad daylight. So, I called in.

That lasted about five minutes. I made a quick transmission (no, seriously), passed it around, and by the time it got back to Gary, he was gone again.

Here in the sunspot low, 75 at night is starting to behave like 40 or even 30 meters, with multiple skip zones slowly radiating their way out over time. Get your first skip far enough out, and suddenly the short-haul reappears for a moment as another high-angle path establishes itself and begins working toward a lower angle.

It would have been real interesting to hang around until after midnight to see where the propagation settled for a while, but by that time everyone had pretty much bailed on 75, so I listened down on 160. Had plently of good signals on 1885. Too bad I don't have the station lashed up for 160 yet. I can change that, but I've only got Ranger power to work with on 160. Maybe this winter I can build up a 160 deck for the Junkyard Dawg.

All in all, a great Halloween night on 75!

--Thom
Killer Agony One Zipper Got Caught

WA1OXT ??????  Irresponsible rumor !!!

You are already out in the country compared to a lot of guys sitting on small city lots with next-door houses less than the length of a 80m dipole away, or worse yet, living in apartments or duplexes.  Even though I live in the country, my closest is about the same as yours. I very rarely have TVI now; at least I haven't heard a complaint for decades.  Putting the antenna on the tall tower 140' behind my shack got rid of TVI in my own house, plus nearly everyone round  here uses cable, and the cable system seems to be well shielded.

The telephones, computer sound systems and stereos just have to fend for themselves.  My policy is to co-operate, but operate.

I have managed to get into the sound system of every computer I have ever owned, regardless of the power I run or the band I operate.  I have been told it's because of the "pin 1 error - the shielded lead is grounded to the sound card of the computer instead of the case, and carries the rf right into the circuit board.  Unlike many or most desktop computers, mine does have a metal enclosure.  I have never taken the trouble to try to fix it.  It's just easier to turn the speakers off. 

I also get into my own telephone and telephone answering machine.  It doesn't really bother anybody; the biggest  problem it causes is when the phone rings and I am transmitting, I can't claim that I wasn't at home to answer the phone when the caller called.  The caller can hear my audio at the other end over the phone.  I usually let the landline ring, and check the caller ID or answering machine and call back, unless I happen to be within earshot of the ans machine, or within arm's reach of the caller ID.  That way I pretty much filter out all the junk phone calls.

I meant that -in the country- my closest neighbor is 500 yards away.  HERE at home, the houses are less than a 10m dipole apart :-(

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I did post a message that has a picture of my loop.  You can see the neighbors house (and therefore, see how close the rest of 'em are).  Either side, behind me, and across the street, I've got neighboritis.

Don/KYV and myself were on 3705 until at least 1 AM a few weekends back. The band was dead quiet. I'm sure we could have worked you Jeff.

Hello Ellen,

We opted not to get the 4-1000, we instead got the Commander 2500 Magnum with a pair of 3CPX800A7's ... Been running it about 2 1/2 weeks now. I keep listening for you but no luck  with band conditions the way they are.  ???  I have talked to a couple stations in your neck of the woods, but havn't heard ya as of yet.

See ya later.. Have a good weekend!

Hi Kevin,

I haven't been on 75 or 40m AM much lately.  The 6146 in my Scout called it quits, and I haven't had time to do a "mad scientist" expiriment with a Chinese 6146W (a militarized 6146B) I have, that's just collecting dust.  I took a day of vacation today, so I'm hoping to work on that deal today.  I'm also hoping to do receiving loop improvements. I've missed two; Saturday Morning, Midwest Classic Exchange nets.  That's too many in my book!  So, ahm a gonna work on the Scout today. Hopefully the 6146B won't take off on me.  A couple of others have used them in earlier incarnations of the Scout with no problems. But, when the 6146B came out, there were a lot of rigs designed around the 6146 & 6146A, that freaked out when run with the 6146B. 

So you got a Commander HF - hmmm, if it's anything like the Commander II for 2m (which I've known about for ages, from my VHF & UHF weak signal operating), it should be a great amp.   

73,
Ellen - AF9J

Yea, Don retired earlier this year and wonders where everybody is at 1AM. ;)

The band tried to go long early last night (7:30 or so) and was unstable throughout the evening. This resulted in some SSB ops lighting up under us on 3710 not realizing we were there, then moving 1.5 kcs when they did. *sputter*grumble*

Heading into a weekend of winterizing the house by day, AM operation by night. Hope to hear a lot of folks on the air.

I always had plenty of late nights to operate long before I retired.  When I taught school, we had a generous number of days off besides summers; Thanksgiving, Xmas break, spring break, legal holidays plus numerous 3-day weekends.  This time off partially compensated for the 10-hour work days and extra work that occurred at other times.  Sometimes, I would wake up post-midnight and just couldn't get back to sleep. Before I took the teaching job in 1985, my working hours at the two-way  radio service shop were flexible.  Dating all the way back to when I was at university as a student myself, I have regularly had the option of operating in the wee hours.  My normal schedule, if I don't have to rise early the next day for work or other specific purpose, is to go to bed about 0700-0800 GMT and to rise around 1400-1500 GMT. Like Jack, K9ACT, now that I am retired, I don't pay any attention to the PITA time changes.

And my clear observation is that there isn't the late night activity on the bands that there was 10, 5 or even 2 years ago.  I used to always be able to call CQ on a popular AM frequency at 1 AM and get an AM  response.  Now, the bands are very frequently devoid of activity, AM, SSB or CW, sometimes as early as 11pm  local time.  I can tune 160 even on a QRN-free night and sometimes hear no signals at all, and scan 80/75 and hear fewer than a half dozen signals total from 3.5-4.0.


I am pretty much stuck in that mode right now.  Trying to get the exterior wall of the ham shack that I stripped down to bare wood repainted before the wx gets too cold and rainy, and then I plan to temporarily cover the rest with house wrap to arrest the deterioration through the rest of winter and continue with painting and repairs next spring.  Plus, I have some roof leaks on the main house to find and repair - something often more difficult to locate than intermittent radio problems.

So retired or not, I still seem to be working 6 - 8 hour days right now.

I'd love to see the ultimate AM get together someday, A QSO going on every 5 KC frrom bottom to the top of the band on 75 one night....


Talk about some "Piss&Moan" Buckateerrs!!!!!!!!!!!!   ;D

80 stations, pair off and go every 10k.... no reason to interfere with each other.....

That would be fun!!

1. Sounds like a great idea!

Perhaps daytime to start with, say, on the Friday after Thanksgiving - Homecoming Day.  No more than 3 AM'ers per channel.  Fill the band from 3700 - 4000  _._

2.  Another idea is to have an Old Buzzard/Filibuster Day.  One channel occupied for at least 24 hours solid;  old buzzard transmissions the order of the day, the longer the better.  Don't forget to i.d. every ten minutes.

Gonna go that far...... might as well fill the entire Fone band.....

Pack 'em in from 3600-4000

We held down a frequency last Sunday all day till the band went long.
Man were the slops freaking out.

Tom, that is soooo tempting to me!

73,
Ellen - AF9J
Housework's done, now time for radiowork

Will try again when I get back home.

Greets from the Big Sleazy, y'all!

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

... when I get off of work for the day, that is ;-)