The AM Forum

The new 630 meter band (472 to 479 KHz) has a maximum ERP of 5 watts.  CW and WSPR modes are there and the modes lend themselves to low power.  Phone operations are allowed there as well, but would it be in poor taste to put an AM carrier in the middle since the band is only 7 KHz wide?  At 5 watts peak, that would work out to about 1 watt carrier if you modulate at a decent level.  

You wouldn't be able to talk to anyone, at all... ever... at that power level.  You could however broadcast an AM beacon similar to a CW beacon.  Just get a voice contest keyer and put it on repeat.  

I was thinking about some quick ballpark figures on a single FET class E rig at those frequencies and the size of the tank components are enormous!  You could scale things down since the power is so minuscule.  Probably a 50 turn miniductor would suffice for the tank coil.  After that, just keep adding 1000pf doorknobs everywhere until things work out.

But actually, the limit is 5 watts ERP.  So, you could technically run a 1kw carrier rig into an 8' whip. That's actually funny... run a 95% efficient transmitter into a 5% efficient antenna. 

Jon

The 630 meter band is really too narrow for SSB, to say nothing of AM, if many people are to enjoy our new allocation. Another consideration is that antenna system bandwidth is likely to be narrow enough, with some configurations, to act as a narrowbanding filter.  This is something that has to be taken into consideration for regular AM broadcast arrays as well.
CW and some of the various digital modes are in order.  Wideband modes on 630m will ensure hate and discontent.

I was a lowfer op in the late 80s.

The way it has been argued / interpreted is you use a NEC style simulation program to get antenna and feedline efficiency estimates.

Then build an amplifier to.get the legal ERP.

A friend who has an experimental license for the low bands has a few kilowatt amp.  To get 5 watts ERP.

--Shane
KD6VXI

A full length dipole would be almost 1000 feet long.  Efficiency would suffer too because you'd need to get it extremely high in the air. 

I'm sure one of the commercial antenna manufacturers will come out with a good antenna. 

Jon

As Shane said, at those frequencies it takes considerable power to effect any field strength.

Field strength is measured with a calibrated receiver, and from that a required ERP (effective radiated power) combined with plotted antenna efficiency, is derived.

Antenna efficiency vs. input power calculations yields TPO (transmitter power output).

Having a 1kW TX to get 5W ERP is very close to real world amateur antennas.

In short, hams are not limited to 5W transmitters here.

73DG

When I did lowfer ops, I got a very wideband car stereo amp.....  Black Magic, I believe the brand or name was.

Mono bridged, it did a few hundred watts.  Into 8 ohms.

It had no transformer on the output, it was BTL design (balanced transformer less design).

Worked great for the school year I operated it.

Then I got a car, and the amp went to its intended use.

--Shane
KD6VXI

So does anyone on here intend on working 630 or 2200 meters or filled out the notification form to the Utilities Technology Council to operate there? I did it on Thursday and haven't heard back yet, I don't have any plans to operate there yet, I wouldn't be able to from my house anyway, but at the far end of the farm is a perfect spot to put up a rather large T antenna and stretch out a nice long Beverage for receive that is good way away from anything noisy, thats what I put down for the coordinates where I would be operating from. Class D rig for 472 khz wouldn't be too hard to put together, if I could get my hands on one an old WW2 navy shipboard MF transmitter would be perfect for down there, considering the average antenna installation would probably need around 150 to 500 watts to make the 5 watt ERP limit.

EIRP, not ERP, an important distinction:

Amateurs operating on 472-479 kHz will be permitted a maximum equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP) of 5 W, except in parts of Alaska within 800 kilometers (approximately 496 miles) of Russia, where the maximum would be 1 W EIRP. [EIRP is the product of the power supplied to the antenna and the antenna gain in a given direction, relative to an isotropic antenna (absolute or isotropic gain). EIRP is equal to ERP multiplied by 1.64.]

There are quite a few aeronautical beacons in the 200-400 kHz range running far less than 5 W EIRP at 25-50 Watts TPO with 50' verticals and capacity hats that can be heard hundreds of miles away at night. The potential of the 630M band is significant. Xmtr construction is underway.

C,

I've got my HP 200C warmed up and ready to go.


klc

I sent mine in a couple of weeks back and haven't heard anything back.

Looking around, it appears that the Anan 100D will make some power down there when in extended band mode. I wonder if that applies to the 200D I have as well. If so, then perhaps we'll be able to participate when the curtain goes up.  ;D

I wonder if I can 'run' PSK31 with the HP.???

 I'll just winde  a coil atound some  plastic garbage can and load up my 80m di pole.



Klc

I hear that can work and have seen some big copper tubing coils on some setups. I'm eyeing some big trees in the back yard with a slingshot thinking of an inverted L. Might be able to get up 60' and then go back several acres...  Probably be good on 160 too.  ;D

Looking at the Anan stuff, looks like the bands may already be in there.   :) Going to play around on a dummy load tonight.

Did some checking on the Anan 200D last night and was pleased to find that it already seems to support both bands on receive, though listening around I didn't hear much of anything with my antennas, and in fact not much on LF at all. On 630m I was able to get more than 20 watts output on CW, no output on 2200m. Guess it's time to start looking at the antenna situation.  :)

For 630M, I found a simple L network will tune a modest longwire and make a significant difference in reception. Use a BCB oscillator or antenna coil or a loopstick antenna in series between your antenna and receiver. For tuning, connect a 366mmfd (remember those?) BCB tuning cap between the antenna and ground.

Another option is to connect them both in series between the antenna and receiver. This combination should dramatically improve reception across most of the 200-500 kc band.

I will give that a try Clark. I have a couple of low full wave loops, 80 and 160 meters, and a 40/60 meter dipole and a butternut vertical to play with. And a flaky loop antenna that I don't trust and need to sort out.

I did some listening with the Anan the other night, and didn't find much, even NDB beacons, but it was a brief try. Last night I was playing with Simon Browns sdr-radio version 3 and an RSP1 on the 80 meter loop, and I was able to copy a number of NDBs, including our middle marker at KITH, and I think WWVH down at 60 Khz. Were some buzz saw digital looking signals around 18-25 khz, that might be long wave navy stuff, or could be noisy switchers in the house (though come to think of it, they weren't replicated every harmonic, so maybe real signals) I'll have to check back with the Anan and see if I can get similar results side by side. I may have to figure out how to fiddle the filters in the Anan to pass low signals.

Still scoping the back yard to see what kind of inverted L might be able to go up if I decide I want to try transmitting. The transmit test on the Anan looked promising. Are you listening down there regularly? What are you hearing? In the 472-479 range I saw a couple of weak lines in the waterfall, but nothing that looked like cw. I suspect much of what is there is WSPR, which I'll have to configure on the machine with VAC. Or maybe that's not where the current part 5 activity is. I know I've copied w2zm's station in the past on my TS2000 down around 500 khz, but don't recall the frequency. Where can I look for current activity, and what modes?

Kevin

WG2XSB is regularly on 471 in the evenings from Stowe, MA. I hear it fairly regularly here in SW CT and use it to judge both propagation and the tuning of my L network for 630M reception.

FWIW, I registered my location with the overlord.

There is a 30 day review process, no news is good news.


KLC

WG2XSB copied tonight on the RSP1 and the 160 meter loop, parts of which are lying on the ground. I'll grab a loopstick and a 365 pf variable, maybe multi section so i can parallel up another and see how they work to tweak the rx. Do they beacon continuously? I am hearing them for a while, then nothing, and then a bit later they are back. I'd fire up the anan but it's getting late and I have an early vet appointment tomorrow for the critters.

Thanks for the info. Are you planning to be qrv on 630 Clark?

Kevin

I ended up giving the anan a try last night after all. Odd results. Running powersdr, latest release, I couldn't hear anything, although using the rsp1 with sdr-radio v3 and the same antenna the station in Stow was good copy. Switching to cusdr, an older version, I was able to copy on the anan, Same hardware and antenna. Go figure.

Kevin, I wonder if we'll be able to work each other.

Off to find out where I put my loopsticks.

A loopstick will work or you can homebrew an inductor. You might only need around 200uH and that's easy to get by winding magnet wire on a toilet paper core. Remember making crystal radio coils? ;-)

WG2XSB coming in well on 471.

Hearing something now on 478kc:

DE WD2XSH / 31 / 31 / 31 K or something like that...

http://w4dex.com/500khz/wd2xsh31.htm (http://w4dex.com/500khz/wd2xsh31.htm)

How much power will that loopstick take?

The cap/loopstick combo is for receive only to get a feel for the new 630M band. Coupling power for transmission is going to take something more substantial ;-)

Yep. Litz wire may come back into vogue.

The LST-325 probably has a TDE transmitter that will tune around the new freq. and being a good sized ship may have the decent aerial. I know there are hams involved with restoring the transmitters. I've been aboard on a personal tour, very interesting.



If one is in Illinois, why not volunteer to help work on the ship and go all out?
LST-325
http://www.lstmemorial.org/

A lot of old navy transmitters should be pretty good for down there, the TDE, TAJ, TBL, TCN/TCU, TBW/GO-9, ATD, GP-7, ATC/ART-13 (if you have the LF module), and even the BC-375. I'd like to find the MF unit for the GO-9 to go with the HF unit i have for the same rig.

http://www.472khz.org/pages/and-more/useful-links.php


Good info for you guys looking at getting on hmf (as a prior 172 kHz op....  Well..... ).

Antenna, amplifier, etc. Info all to be found their.

--Shane
KD6VXI

Perry Ballinger, W8AU, is one of the volunteer crew and is a radio operator on board during their underway operations.  He frequently checks into the Old Military Radio CW net during these operations using the ship's amateur call,WW2LST.  I think they have gone on the air on MF on some special operating occasions in the past, including the Armed Forces day crossband operations in May, using the ship's Navy callsign, NWVC, and their TDE transmitter.  The TDE covers both MF and HF, essentially two transmitters in one cabinet, 803 finals rated at 135 watts output on each frequency range.

^^^ @KD6VXI  http://www.472khz.org/pages/and-more/useful-links.php (http://www.472khz.org/pages/and-more/useful-links.php)

What a cornucopia of information, thanks!!

  "
             Kevin, I wonder if we'll be able to work each other.   "



I wonder.....

Maybe if I get the 160m eL up and running, and the wind blows the right way.....  I'd guess psk 31 would be worth a try - it's good for low sig levels. I hope to have the eL up before the Witch of November visits.


klc

I'm thinking I'll try to be on with CW, PSK, and probably WSPR.

Tried to do some antenna work last night but got derailed and the sun went down. Did get on the anan again last night and I think the found the problem why I wasn't copying much with PowerSDR but could with cuSDR - the gain settings in PowerSDR were pretty low, lots of default attenuation in. when I took that out and got it to more normal levels, I could copy as well as with the RSP1 and cuSDR. The station in Stow was good copy again last night.

I then tuned around to see what else I could hear. I was able to hear a number of NDBs, nearly 20 logged. The furthest was in North Carolina! The closest was the middle marker at the local airport. So it seems I'm hearing reasonably well. I need to find my loopsticks or wind a coil to do some antenna matching as Clark suggested.

Did some more transmit tests into the dummy load. Looks like 10-20 watts will be possible. Current drain doesn't seem to be too high compared to higher bands.

Still scoping out the antenna options.

Anyone know where to find some of the part 5 guys who are currently on the air using different modes and their operating schedules?

Last night must've been a good night down that low. Was hearing WD2XSH/31 pretty good, he's about 200 miles south of me. Was also hearing what could've been a couple of longwave carriers from Europe. Also had a carrier on 1215 khz which could've been from a station in England on that frequency.

I'm regularly hearing WG2XSB (471kc) and WD2XSH (478kc) at night. Anyone catch others?

Here's an interesting PDF article on 630M operation from Steve Johnston (WD8DAS):

http://www.wd8das.net/630mPractical.pdf (http://www.wd8das.net/630mPractical.pdf)

I'm hearing WG2XSB on 471 most evenings, although sometimes there seems to be some QSB. I didn't know about 'XSH on 478. I'll listen tonight. Is he a CW beacon also? Are there other's you know about that we should try to listen for? frequencies and modes? Tuning around with the Anan I could see NDBs and the station on 471, but didn't see anything else in the 470-500 khz range on the panadapter.

Based on your screen shot of a 706, I dragged out my ICOM 703 and found it heard pretty well also. I hadn't remembered they were specified down to 30 Khz. Thanks for the reminder.

Looking for some caps to build a low pass filter to evaluate what's really coming out of the Anan and any other rigs I try.

Clark and Kevin, what kinds of transmit antennas are you thinking of? Right off maybe I could try the 40/60 meter dipole with the ends joined and working the 20 ft vertical section with the dipole legs as top hat. I guess you have to be careful of high voltage doing that, and that coax routes through the basement and out. Hmmmm.

Other antenna ideas include an inverted L as long as I can make it, an edington loop which looks like a 1/4 wave loop of wire, or a humongous magnetic loop made from a piece of heliax laying in the yard that I'd have to hang from a tree or two.  :-)

Who else is thinking of trying out this band? What are your plans?


When can people start getting on the air? I think I sent in my UTC thing the first day, and haven't heard anything back at least by email. Does that make use clear to go on the 15th or 16th if no contact?

Who's going to make the first AM contact on 630m and PO everyone? Clark, what are you modulating those 6146's with?  :o

 

Since I posted I've seen a small flurry of people posting on Zuckbook that they've received emails today from utc.org blessing their operation. So it looks like email notifications are starting to come out. I think I applied the first or second day when I saw a posting about it, so hopefully I'll see something this weekend. Might start to see some signals on there soon.

I'm trying to put up a 160m eL....  for the last 6 or 7 years.  But I've got hope.

Murphy's Law radial design for inverted eLs...   1/10 wavelength...  works out to be 205 feet.  And 'they' like at least 16 radials. That looks like 6.55 rolls o Homleys despot thhn rolls. That and a garbage can for a coil form.


What I'll probably end up doing is loading up a 600 ohm resistor with the HP audio gen and see if I can hear it at the bottom of my driveway.


klc


FLASH!

I got my 'authorization' in email form this morning. So it looks like I'll be able to "get on" the new band.

Now if I can just do it in less than 10 years, I may be happy.

Now I'm worried, mine hasn't come yet.😣

Well, that's cause I'm special.


klc

Here is one of the better web SDRs for checking out the 630M band. It's "pretuned" to 471kc for receiving WG2XSB * but you can adjust the frequency once the receiver has loaded:

Fair Hill, MD:  http://73.163.115.161:8073/?f=471.00cwz10 (http://73.163.115.161:8073/?f=471.00cwz10)

* Note that this station is not always operating but will most likely be heard in the evenings

Now I'm wondering whether I actually filled the form out completely and got it launched, or if I got distracted and didn't finish it. Not like that ever happens.  :o

Was scanning around last night to see if there were any new signals and BOOM, no3m popped up calling CQ. Easy copy, almost S9 at 473khz. I looked him up on QRZ and dropped a note with a reception report and asked what he was using as he was a really good signal up here. This is what I got back.


Take a look at the web pages - OMG.   He's working people on SSB!

I think I'll just quit now with my 20 watts and little wire antenna plans....

I have most of the parts to be able to slap together a Compactron tube and a DDS VFO for CW.  But, I'm in the same boat.  About 20 watts and a wire.  That guy has some serious stuff!

The pi network for the tube's output network has some crazy big numbers.  The only way to make the size of the components manageable is to use low power stuff.

My blessing certificate hasn't come in either.  I applied about 3 weeks ago.

Jon

Watt you gata do is get some soft Cu pipe(3/4 in) and make something like a 3 foot diamater by 30 inch tall coil wound on a wood frame, slap a counter top on it and use it fer lawn furniture. At nite roll it to yer vertical and, like Curley, start broadcastinn.

Do it for the children.

KLC

Wow!  I just received an approval email back from UTC.org.  Specifically, they said I was approved because:

UTC has determined that your proposed amateur radio station would not operate within a horizontal distance of one kilometer from a transmission line that conducts a power line carrier (PLC) signal in the 135.7 - 137.8 | 472.0 - 479.0 bands.

An amateur operator must not operate an amateur station if UTC responds that the proposed amateur station is located within 1 km of a transmission line with a PLC system that operates on the same frequency or frequency range.  Amateur operators are advised that their operations within 1 km of a PLC system could cause interference to PLC systems that are used by electric utilities to protect their electric transmission systems against faults and electrical outages.  Interference from amateur operations could affect the operation of PLC systems, thereby affecting the reliability of electric utility operations.  As such, amateur operators are advised not to operate any amateur stations within 1 km of a transmission line with a PLC system that operates on the same frequency or frequency range, and amateur operators will be subject to FCC enforcement for unauthorized operations, as well as potential legal liability for damages that result from interference caused by amateur operations to PLC systems.

So, this seems like a filtering system that checks the distance between the Lat/Lon applicants provide and the closest PLC system. If this truly is the last hurdle, then keep an ear out for the "All-New 475" coming soon...

Sigh, still no joy from UTC here. I wish there was a way to check on the status and make sure I really did file it. I'm pretty sure I got all the way through, but if not, every day I sit wondering is one more day added onto the 30. Not that I have any kind of antenna yet.

Heard some more back from No3m.
That's interesting, I didn't realize that there had ever been any or much voice activity on the band. I thought it was all cw, QRSS cw, and digital modes like WSPR. I wonder if anyone has ever made an AM qso down low?

Ordered up a low power (5watt) LPF filter kit from over the pond. I'll need something with more power capability (I hope) at some point, but this will give me a start. Checked on the LP100A and they say it only works down low with the special coupler. Interestingly the power reading on the ME165 and the LP100a both agree on about 25 watts out on 630 meters. I'll have to parallel up a scope and see what the signal voltage is compared to the readings on the meters.  And I guess I'll probably want some sort of scope probe arrangement out at the variometer when we get closer to putting RF on the air.

No chance to listen last night. Did anyone else listen and hear any new activity?

Any new developments? I haven't heard from UTC yet, so just in case I refiled the form. That will give me more time to think about antennas.  ;)

Low pass filter hasn't shown up yet. Did get an upconverter kit for listening on rigs that can't go down there. Haven't had a chance to listen the last few nights - I imagine the activity must be starting to pick up.

Anybody else making any progress?

Found an interesting site today, a former marine radio op expressed his gratitude at mf and lf being granted to hams, and he relays some of his 'coastie' stories.....  Including copying a ship as it sunk, and the CW note changing in his ears as the radio room flooded.

Related to the discussion, thought I'd pass it along.  Cool reading, if nothing else.

https://w3atb.com/history-of-marine-radio-as-experienced-by-jeff-herman-kh6o/

Edited to actually include the link!


--Shane
KD6VXI

Sounds almost like radiomarine.org since you didn't include a link, the website of the Maritime Radio Historical Society, which runs coast station KPH. Great website with lots of info and stories about what it was like back when MF was the state of the art for marine communication.

Resurrecting this old thread, I finally got back to this project, after a QTH move and sloooowly getting a shack back together in a temporary fashion while waiting for a shed to be delivered for a more permanent setup.

Over the holiday break, I built a 630 meter dipole with electric fence wire and insulators. I started up at 15 feet but after a few scary ladder experiences on uneven ground, I ended up doing most of it at about 8 feet, which isn't great, but the difference between 8 feet and 15 feet doesn't look to make a lot of difference. The proximity to ground greatly affected the tuning. I started out with roughly 985 feet, measured tree to tree with a rangefinder, and so far I've trimmed about 60 feet off each side and need to trim a little more. The good news is after the initial tuning at 406 khz, it's currently resonant around 459, and the tentec 238 tuner can get it to 1.3 swr at 474 khz measured on a the AA-1000 analyzer. I'll probably trim a bit more off tonight to sweeten it up some. If it turns out to be a total dud, I can always re-purpose it as a beverage antenna with some transformers and loads.  :-)

I let WSPR run last night and was copying stations from Texas and the left coast, so that wasn't too bad. Better than using the 160 meter doublet through a balun has been over the last few weeks.

Tonight I have to do a bit more checking out of the ANAN200D output on 630 - I want to measure the power output vs input current on 160 meter and 630 meters, to make sure it's not running too inefficiently, don't want to cook the rig. Maybe check the heat sink temp as well. If that looks ok, I'll use a scope to confirm the power output into a dummy load and see how far off the LP100 and various other meters are at those frequencies and take a look at the waveform, then set it for 5-10 watts and let fly on WSPR.

I talked with another ham down in Florida who is using a similar dipole and with his encouragement decided this was the easiest way to dip my toes into the world of 630 meters. As it happens, I'm blessed with enough room behind the house to run a pair of 500 foot legs so a 1000' dipole was actually the easiest thing to implement. Eventually I'll maybe try a T antenna or other options if the band proves interesting.

Wondering how other's foray's into this band went. It got pretty quiet after that burst of discussion. In my listening I've heard a bunch of WSPR, some CW, some other digital modes, and even an LSB qso! So there is some life below the broadcast band.

BTW, I think I've sent off my info to the UTC folks 4 times now, twice from the old address, and twice from the new and heard back NADA. No news is good news I'm told.

Clark, did your tube rig ever get on? KLC, did you ever get on down there?

I had several experimental licenses several years ago and regularly operated from 60 KHz to 500KHz. Class D transmitters are what I used at powers from 100 to 2000 watts. I used a 65 foot top hat vertical fed with large variometers. On 500 KHz standard CW was easy to accomplish for thousands of miles. My best 60 KHz was about  100 miles. It was so difficult I didn't continue for long. On 60 KHz the variometer coil cor was 36 " plastic pipe.

It is not a low power venture.  power MOSFETs make Class D transmitters easy to build and test.

One of my licences allowed AM, but I new got around to trying it. Would have been easy with a PWM power supply.

The first night that I operated on 498 KHz at 100 watts (transmitter build on an 8 x 5" Hammond chassis) - I kept quiet about it. I was amazed to get 10-15 messages on the experimental board asking who I was. Was lots of activity then. I am not sure about now. 7 KHz and the low EIRP sort of made me lose interest. I still have that little 100 watt transmitter and the HP signal generator locked to GPS though.

Pat
N4LTA

Last night I verified I could get between 1-15 watts out of the ANAN cleanly through the LPF, without excessive current draw, so I put it on the air at 5 watts to see if anyone heard me.

Here's the plot for the last 24 hours. Whoo hoo! I was only on for about an hour last night around 11:30 pm, didn’t feel comfortable leaving it running unattended overnight yet, and only made about 6-7,  2minute transmissions.

 

About 35 station. Not too shabby! On the listening side I was hearing about as many, including two from across the pond in the UK and some from the pacific northwest! Pretty cool! This was with 5 watts to the antenna. Now I have to figure out how to estimate the EIRP from my low low dipole and see how much more power I can add to the antenna to see if I can stretch that out some. Doing a simulation with EZNEC my antenna gain is about -16 db, so I have some headroom to add power, up to about 200 watts, but not much more power available from the ANAN as it is.

Below is the coverage this morning around 8 am when the sun was up and the D layer is active. One two minute transmission. Tonight I’ll see if I can make any contact with FT8 or other modes.

73 de Kevin, WB2EMS



 

Hi Pat,

I'm not sure how much activity there is down there these days besides WSPR yet either. I did see some sort of back and forth stuff going on lower in the audio passband, and there was some sort of FSK CW signal, but when I tried to copy it was all gibberish to me. It was also later in the evening, so activity on a weeknight might have already been down.

I think the low EIRP is an issue, but with realistic antenna efficiencies, most stations aren't going to get a lot more than 5 watts even with serious power. Lowfer folks have been doing interesting stuff for a long time with less.

We'll see how the next few weeks go. If I can  make some QSO's my interest will likely keep on. If not much out there besides WSPR, than it will fade. Still it was an interesting low effort exercise costing only $25 of electric fence wire and a few hours of pushing through brush.

Kevin

Have fun down there. The limited bandwidth will limit some activity. I had a great time when my experimental license was valid. There is really no reason a much wider band should not be made available.

Pat
N4LTA

I started on 500kHz about 15 years ago under an experimental license, first as WD2XSH/23 and then under my own license WE2XGR. WE2XGR was (and still is) authorized to run 1kW ERP from 460-515 kHz. For a while there was a Sunday evening sked on 510kHz ssb (upper sideband), the stations involved were Bob W2ZM, Jay W1VD, John W1TAG, Eric NO3M, and myself. Bob, Jay, John and I were under the WE2XGR license, Eric had has own. Bob W2ZM was the strapper, he ran a 3CX3000 homebrew amplifier with a couple of kW out into a top loaded 90' vertical with a 309' horizontal wire capacity hat. Bob once had a cross-mode QSO with Finbar O'Connor EI0CF in Malin Head Ireland, Bob was on ssb and Finbar was on CW. This was likely the only trans-atlantic ssb contact on that band.  I was the piss-weaker on Sunday nights with 100W into a 70 ft high vertical with 162' horizontal wire capacity hat (my dipole with the feeders shorted and fed through a tapped coil against a cold-water pipe ground).

These days I sometimes run CW into an on-ground dipole under my ham call on 472.5, occasionally I will run WSPR.

It's pretty much a waste of time to run AM under the ham rules due to the low power and limited bandwidth unless you have a buddy across town you want to work.

73 & HNY
Warren K2ORS

   Careful UTC does NOT authorize or approve amateur operation on 630 meters! They can only object to such operation. Only the FCC can "authorize" or "approve" operation! This is an important distinction ! We don't want to ceed authority to an industry group like UTC!


73 Warren K2ORS

@ N1BCG:

I like that transmitter there.. all those meters!

Quick update.

Last night was a wild night on 630 by all accounts. Lots of QSB but several folks had their best ever night according to the chat on Slack. I missed most of it, but got on for a bit at the end of the day. Hopefully tonight will be good as well. Apparently there was an ssb roundtable down south for a while.

So far I'm being heard about halfway across the country and down to Georgia on WSPR with 5 watts out of the ANAN200D. I've made 4 JT9 contacts, and will probably make more once I stop stepping on my crank while trying to run the program!  ;D 

Tonight I'm going to play around with a flex 1500 with an eye to using it on the band, and pairing it up with one of the K5DNL amps. I'm worried I might be stressing the ANAN running it down at that frequency, but so far it hasn't acted up.

Retuned the antenna a bit. Very odd to be making adjustments by trimming off yards of wire instead of inches, or fractions thereof.  First cut I trimmed it 21 yards. Then 4 yards. Looks like I need another yard and a half off to hit 474 khz. "Antenna here is a 1.2 furlong dipole at 8 feet...."

Fun so far....

wow! over 40 rods.
quite a spread.

-more seriously, looks like some neat contacts.

"Chain!"  yelled at over 10 runouts, new mark for the rodman.

UTC has de facto approval of 2200m/630m operations. They can "object" to any application, thereby denying it. There is no appeal process to the FCC.  There is no public reporting of their decisions, and no public oversight.  

-UTC controls low band operations for all practical purposes.

*I'm not a rabble-rouser, nor a conspiracy theorist; merely stating facts.  The FCC once again has abandoned its' regulatory responsibilities and ceded them to an industry organization.  The public interest is not protected and amateurs have no method for redress of grievances or due process.   De-regulation of government is running to absurdity.

We can use the 2200m/630M on a secondary/non-interference basis or not at all. Up until a few years ago, it was not at all.
It's absurd to believe that was somehow better!

I find it odd that some folks apparently get responses from them, and others, like me, just get crickets. In my case no news is good news I suppose, but that inconsistency does make me wonder.

I do get that the FCC should be the gatekeeper, not some industry entity with no recourse.

Amp should be here Friday. Got some more antenna tuning to do some evening or weekend. Need to move it up from 470 to 475 to center on the frequencies in use which for me are primarily the jt9 and WSPR window 800-1400 above the 474.2 carrier frequency.

Going to change over the station from using the ANAN200D to using a flex 1500 in transverter mode driving a K5DNL 200 watt non linear amplifier. The Flex seems to hear as well as the ANAN though I want to do better comparisons.

I tried my pixel pro loop on 630 the other day with the flex and didn't hear much of anything. I need to check it on other frequencies and with the ANAN. It might be a good option for lower noise receiving but not if it's deaf down there. OTOH, I just moved it before the test and maybe something like the new cable isn't happy, though it did power up the amp very clearly by the increase in background noise.

Hoping to make a few more QSOs tonight.

I got my authorization about a year ago and built up a transmitter, but too busy to get a serious antenna up and try it out! So zero on air experience with the 2 new bands. But expect magic.

I can say that my lowfer beacon on 187 kHz back in 1991-92 with 1 Watt input power and a legal antenna was one of the great learning experiences of my hamming. I started out with an ice chest with a CMOS oscillator divider into an IRF-510 at 1 Watt Input Power. The tank coil was #12 enamelled wire on a 6 inch form and the loading coil was also large. I started with a simple wire up in a tree vertical with a few radials and a ground rod. I barely got across my yard! DX!

When I finally figured out I needed more efficiency in the antenna, and got hold of a RF mA Meter, improvements started. The final form of the 50 ft "legal" antenna was a diamond cage with a giant top hat made of a 15 ft diameter circle of 75 Ohm Hardline, suspended by 4 ropes into the Pine trees. It looked like a giant wagon wheel with a diamond cage below it. The center spreaders were bamboo poles. And then I started sinking radials. Everything I did increased the current! 

In the end of the experiments, I was being heard. In fact I had a homebrew superhet in the car with a 4.3333333333333 MHz ladder filter and an upconverter and a 3 ft active whip and out of the speaker I could easily hear my beacon 35 miles away in Massachusetts going 60 MPH on 495.  So 5 Watts EIRP OUTPUT? on 500 kHz? Dude

I've been reading about and listening to Lowfers for years and listened to some of the special license stations (W2ZM is about 50 miles from here and used to be very strong) but had never managed to get off the dime to do anything. When 630 opened up I decided to dip a toe in the water and see. I don't know that I'll ever get on 2200m, maybe if I'm feeling masochistic sometime. But 630 is fun so far.

Based on the EZNEC calculations, my antenna gain is about -16.1 db, so for 5 watts TPO, I'm at about 100 mw EIRP and being heard halfway across the country. Pretty impressive. Of course it's the middle of winter in a sunspot null, this may be the best it will be for years, who knows. This weekend I'm going to rearrange the temporary shack to get the amp and the flex1500 on and see how it goes. Initially I'll just be running on 14 volts, so about 50 watts TP0, maybe a watt EIRP. We'll see what adding 10 db to the system does. Most stations are giving me reception reports 10-15 db below how I'm hearing them, so that should put me on a more equal footing.