The AM Forum

I was in the Shack from 8:00 till 10:00 and all I heard was 10 over Slop everywhere
with hardly anything heard on the usual AM frq's. Even 160 only had two weak AM QSOs heavily Aurora modulated.
Finally about 9:00 I saw a 0+10 swing carrier that turned out to be a 3 just outside of DC running a 30V. He had a good copy on my 100 watts but couldn't keep his rig up for long due to arcing in the final. Not long after that a 4 running a great sounding 20V from near Nashville came on at about the same 0+10 over and got in QSO with an 8 running a Globe 400 giving me a little less signal but Q5 copy. I was going to see if they heard me but had to leave at 10:00.
This was all on 3885 with no other carriers or tuner uppers heard in the "window". I announced my presence a couple of times and checked the tuning but just background noise and light monkey chatter came back. Don't know if the band was long or short but it wasn't broke. Maybe the aurora shift scared everyone off. Apparently not much of a problem for SSB.

Bill

Hello Bill,

I did my best last night!  The transmitter that I was using was a Collins 30K.  It kept arcing the output link due to high SWR up on 3885.  I later re-tuned it on 3705 and it worked fine down there. I've been off the air for a few years and still have a lot of work to do to get the station back in full operation again.

I need to build up an antenna tuner, or go back to open wire feed, if I'm going to be able to QSY between the new AM frequencies that seem to be all over the band nowadays.

Good to meet you last night.

Charlie K3YA (ex N3BQW)

Nice to have you back, Charlie, what a pleasure to have worked you the other night.

I was on Thursday night around that same frequency with a couple guys and condx were real sweet.

Will look for you again soon.

I was on 3690 all evening Friday.  Worked BIL Bud and a couple of others, with 4 in the round-table for a while. After they signed out a station in TN, about 65 miles away called in, running a Jupiter on AM.

Thursday night I heard a couple of weak KL7s on 1945 around 0400-0500 GMT.  I couldn't get all their callsigns, or whether they were really in Alaska or not. Alaska on top band would be quite a haul for here.

I was hearing auroral flutter on some signals the last two nights on 40 meters.

Here's how you sounded in October of 1997 Charlie. I just dubbed some recordings from cassette to the computer recently and you were on one of them. Welcome back.

Corrected the typo.  The KL7s were on 1945, not 1985.

Thanks for the recorded audio Steve.  From 1997!  I'm getting to be an "old buzzard" 

The R390A mentioned in the recording is still working like a champ and playing next to me as I type this. 

Charlie

I heard you this morning talking to the F6 on 3705 this morning, Don.  S5 carrier but the S/N didn't allow for much recovered audio.

I hope to hear you on soon.

I was up this morning and heard a loud station on 3705 where the operator was speaking French, then I realized, it was Don talking to F6AQK. Was listening on a Pearce-Simpson Gladding Gulfstream reciver. I can listen to 160 and 75 with it. It has a directional antenna mounted in it.

How does that radio work? I've seen several (or similar by other mfrs) at fests and thought about messing around with one. How directional is the antenna?

I was a little disappointed.  I tried both the half-wave vertical and the dipole (also half-wave  high) and Jean seemed to think the dipole was slightly better.  We had a similar QSO about 10 days ago and he gave me the same  report, although during one  transmission he said the vertical was more solid.  I worked a station on 75 from Seattle a couple of weeks ago and he reported that both antennas peaked about the same, but the vertical had more QSB.

Last night, noise condx were excellent.  No static or line noise, just a gentle background hiss, but I don't think propagation was at its best.  I have seen Jean coming in at 10 dB over S9.  Last night he was about S6.

In any case, I would have thought at Jean's distance the vertical would be head-and-shoulders over the dipole, but they appear to be close to the same with the dipole slightly better more times than not.  It is a full size half wave vertical, base insulated, with 120 half-wave radials. It should strap.

Maybe the top loading effect of the dipole hung on the tower affects something.  But on 80, I measure negligible rf at the end of the dipole feedline when I am using the vertical.  I can ground or unground the dipole feed line and it has very little effect on SWR or the tuning of the vertical.  On 160, using the vertical as a quarter-wave, the dipole has a big effect, bringing the base impedance well above 100 ohms plus substantial j component.  I leave it floating when working 160 with the vertical. Grounding it or shorting it to the tower completely changes the base impedance of the vertical.

Unfortunately, it takes me a  couple of minutes to switch and retune.  I can't do like Timtron does with his shaded dipole vs wire array A-B test.