40M Saturday/Sunday

[WA3VJB]

13:10 EDT --
Headed to 7285Kc.
If you're up, fire up.

CU there.

[AF9J]

Still on 40m Paul? 

Ellen - AF9J

[W3RSW]

Hate to say it but most of 40 skips over me.  I hear 5's & 9's mostly and stuff halfway out in the Atlantic.
Even on 80 (3725) I hear Canadians but can't hear VYZ or any of the statesiders inbetween.  Wonder if it's my 3ft. wire? : )

Tron did come back on 3885 y'day morning to me but couldn't hear the 2's he was working inbetween.  Very crappy solar cycle right now.

[WA3VJB]

Ellen, I was on for about 90 minutes then had chores to do.
But condx were excellent, as you can hear from your regional compadre Mike, W8BAC.  I opened up the R390A "all the way" and this recording is made off the diode load, no EQ, no compression, AGC on slow.

He was running about 250W from an SDR1000 into an Alpha amplifier, the blower of which you can eventually hear in the background as the signal continued to build during this transmission.

Nice stuff.

[AF9J]

Good Morning Paul,

It's nice to hear that 40 was giving a decent path from the East Coast to my neck of the woods.  I was out and and about running errands, so I didn't see your post, until long after you called it quits on 40.  Then I spent some serious time answering phone calls from friends and family who wanted to chat with me.  I spent a fair amount of time last night with the antenna noise cancelling system I bought from AES.  It was very frustrating for me, and it seemed like a failure (and waste of money), until I realized several things:

1.  The noise I've been talking about lately is mainly big time powerline noise, so I had to make & use an outdoor noise antenna.
2. My line of sight (to their antennas - I can see them from my radio table) AM broadcast stations were giving me grief with breakthrough into my receiver, so I had to activate a built-in high pass filter in the noise canceller (I'm still having some problems with the AM stations, but not as much as before).
3.  75 was just plain noisy for me yesterday, and once I realized that much of the noise atmospheric, and I WAS actually nulling out my powerline noise, I was finally able to copy AM on 75.
4.  I get better noise cancelling results with my Swan 270B (& probably my Kenwood TS-820).  I think this is due to their tuned preselector front ends, that help to lower out of band noise.  My Yaesu FT-897D (which I wanted to use until I get my hands on a dedicated AM receiver, due to its wider bandwidth for AM receive) was a bust for noise cancelling, and also a cause of much wasted expirimentation time.  I never was really able to solve my powerline noise problems, through this radio.  I think its broadband receiver front end, may have contributed to this.

I have to go help with cleaning at a no-kill animal shelter (the same one I adopted my 2 cats from) from about 1 PM your time, until about 4:30 or 5 PM your time.  Maybe I'll give 40 a try with the Swan when I get home.  BTW, lately I've been seeing that you guys are QSOing on freqs. around 7285 kHz, instead of the usual 7290 kHz.  What's up?, is 7285 proving to be a better freq. for AM?  Also, are you getting any hassle from our "band of side" friends, on 40?

73,
Ellen - AF9J   

[WA3VJB]

Ellen we will hook up some day, I'm looking forward to it.

I have deliberately tried to stay below 7290Kc to minimize the chance of crowding other AM QSOs that routinely use the top 6-8Kc of 40 meters.

When I don't hear any such activity, I bump it up from a starting call out at 7285 to maybe 7287 to give people the idea of having more than one AM QSO -- what a concept !!!

As Don, K4KYV and others have repeatedly pointed out, it serves NO one to constrain ourselves to one spot on the dial where others who are not interested in our facet of the hobby can then say "go back to where you belong."

As you can hear from the recording I made of Mike, the frequency was and remained quite clear throughout the 30-45 minute conversation I enjoyed with him.

So, guess why is this man smiling ?

[WA3VJB]

Well it worked !  An actual, whole two AM QSOs at the same time on 40m !

I called CQ on 7285Kc here Sunday and back came a station at Andover, Mass, quite strong and in the clear. Jerry is running a DX-100 and was receiving on a Hallicrafters SX-26 (Derb take note !).

Meantime, two other stations fired up on 7292Kc and also were in the clear. You know, this might catch on .... nah .....

What was curious is that the propagation seemed to be strongest to the north/south from my location near Annapolis. Saturday the strongest signals were coming from the midwest.

[WD8BIL]

Sorry I missed ya Paul. Was on on 10:30AM to 12:30PM with W8VYZ, W9AD, W0VMC,WN3V and a few more. Lately that time of day 40 becomes the "what's for lunch net" as I continue to tempt Robert with my BBQ delights.

Hope to hear you soon.

[pe1mph]

Hello,

Never I received AM on 40 mtrs!
Are you mostly around 7290?
I hope on that freq. is in Europa no radio station transmitting.
I mean broadcast station...

[KA1ZGC]

You strap into ZGC Studios quite well on 40, Paul. Just missed you by about 5 minutes yesterday. Never had the flat-top on 40, so it took me several trips to the doghouse to get things tuned up right.

By the time I got it working, you had already signed and the foreign broadcash was fading from black.

Tried to check into a QSO on 7290 and got answered by someone who couldn't hear the QSO, only me. Didn't realize what was going on until I heard the QSO I had been trying to join break up because of the heterodynes.

Apologies to whomever was on 7290 yesterday about 13:30 EDT. That was my mistake.

--Thom
Kraft Advertisement One Zesty Grated Cheese

[wa2dtw]

Sorry.  I guess I'm the guilty one.  I heard Thom, KA1ZCG, but nobody else on 7290.  So I thought I was in QSO only with Thom, but apparently was interfering with another QSO.  Must have been a fairly large skip zone. 
That must be one advantage of 80 and 160 meters over 40!
73
Steve WA2DTW

[KA1ZGC]

I'm on 40 now, be there 'til just after lunch.

Looking forward to 40 meter contacts on the new setup!

This time, I'll try not to step on anyone.

--Thom
Killer Album One Zappa's Greatest Compositions

[AF9J]

I'd love to QSO Thom, but unfortunately, 'Lil ol me has to work until 3:30 PM CDT.

73,
Ellen
Frustrated Rock Guitarist at large

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Well it worked !  An actual, whole two AM QSOs at the same time on 40m !

Eh? Do you mean you were in two at the same time, or there were two going on? If the latter, I've heard multiple groups many weekends on 40. Quite often someone around 7290 and some guys down between 80-85. When I was first back on the air last year and only on 40, I'd bounce between the groups when there was activity. So maybe things have died down?

Of course, hearing more than 2 ongoing groups is pretty rare. For as quiet as 40 tends to be until mid-afternoon, you'd think there'd be a lot more activity there, especially on weekends.

Sounds more like the clump/cluster factor, ala 75m ghetto, to me. 

[pe1mph]

40 mtrs.

This morning I have listen around 7290.
But there is a very strong Russian? station on air.
So I can never receive AM from USA on that freq.
Maybe on 7280 - 7285.

Many freq. are in use by broadcast stations in Europa on 40 mtrs.

So far my information about your AM freq.,

Henk PE1MPH from Holland

[WA3VJB]

40m has been great the past couple weekends, I'm not fired up this afternoon, is anyone on ?

Henk, when is there a path between here and there?

I would enjoy trying to schedule a QSO to Holland, and I check things with a receiver over your way to see if I can be heard on 75m ...

http://pa3ang.nl/index.php?php=rx320&player=wme

[pe1mph]

http://pa3ang.nl/index.php?php=rx320&player=wme


oke!
But on 7290 a Russian radio station.
So I think....

Greetings,

Henk

[k4kyv]

What about the "expanded" portion of 40m somewhere on 7125-7150?

I don't know why the FCC didn't expand the phone band down to 7075.  I never hear any CW or "data" activity on 7075-7125.  Nothing but non-US slopbucket, and maybe 2 or 3 slow-speed CW stations.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

We need to find to find a frequency clear of a broadcast station during the night time. We should be able to work the Europe - North America path pretty easily. Time to start tuning around.

[AF9J]

I don't know what it's like on the East Coast, but typically here in the Midwest, 40 is better between 7150 and 7170.  Up around 7290, it's often BCI City.

Ellen - AF9J

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

The BC stations come and go throughout the night. We just need to tune around and find a spot or spots.