The AM Forum

Just worked Paul/VE7KHZ in British Columbia on 3.875. Not strong, but good audio between the adjacent frequency interference.

Definitely a good night to be playing radio! Off to see what 40 has to offer.

Todd,
You were Q5 here out on Whidbey Island Western Washington

Hearing you folks much better now, Bob. Heard you give your call to K0COM but he wasn't hearing you. Hearing Bob 20-40 over and John is a solid S9 now. Even hearing Pat better, got his transmitter and antenna. So I'll be hanging around in the background for another go in a bit. The nearby noise has ended.

Signals continued to improve to the Seattle area, N7UA was 20-40 db over S9 at times, John K7RLD was +10, was even hearing Pat Q5 and much of KC7PH. A couple of the guys were only running 100-150 watts.

Wandered back up to 3.885 to say howdy to Al and Jerry, Masa and Tim popped by, then it the eyes got heavy. A pretty full night of radio.

My stamina does not get me to 3AM, but what I saw and heard at 10PM Eastern was most folks from the East Coast and mid-west and Canada were mostly 40 over...Very little QRN and the intentional QRM was non-existent,,,,somewhat.

Happy New Year.......I'll try 160M tonight with the new monster antenna
Fred

It was great to work you last night, Fred. Your signal was loud and clear, sounded great. Hope we hear more of you down in the 160m portion of the 80 meter band.

Todd, you are a hard core op! I crapped out early. Looks like I missed a bunch of FB conditions. I did hook up with Jean and company on 3705.

I heard you on, I thought, 3710. Glad you figured out the SSB and AM positions on the rig.  ;D

You caught that! I was up the band testing out a new preamp on my Beverages in the DX Window. I tuned down to 3710 and never hit the button. This is what happens when you are about half asleep!  :)

That's because I've been jonesin' for this opportunity for quite a while, Steve! This was the first time I was able to be on the air for the Rally in Brrrrrrrr-years. Seems we were always in Tampa for Christmas, or the one year I was here (2008-9), I'd just moved in and nothing was set up. That's the year I was listening on the R-390A & Joe/PJP put me on the air via LL, to which Johnny asked when I was gonna get my ass back on the air, causing Jen to spit her drink all over the carpet. Memories.  ;D

Glad you were able to snag Jean & our friends across the pond. I totally forgot. You did miss some excellent coast-to-coast, but there's a motivated group around Seattle who is anxious for more opportunities to work back east, so there will be more chances.

The number and clarity of 80M signals from the East, West, and North was amazing. Even signals in Texas, normally a little too close to receive well, were heard clearly.

The bigger signals were 30-40dB on the meter. The R-390 does not have an S meter so I don't know what that translates to. Any opinions?

There were plenty of SSB stations on the air and several that I could swear moved in close to the occupied frequencies over time but they didn't have any real effect just made noise in between the transmissions.

Reception was with an R-390 and a 50FT vertical wire stretching from the lawnmower shed to almost the top of the tower. At its base is a 200 Ohm N.I. resistance to a ground stake for a 'termination'. This antenna seems better for listening than the dipole sometimes.