AM DX Orgy

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

What a night/morning on 3885!

It started out with several east coast stations rag chewing. Then we called up west coast and had a number of stations check in. The highlight was Bob, N7UA taking many calls to include working Kerrie, KC2UFU running just 35 watts!

Then we got word OH1TX was calling us on 3766 kHz. Yea, you read correctly, that's Finland. So a number of us worked him split. Jaakko was 20 db over 9 at my location. He even made contact with N7UA! That's quite a shot on AM. Jaakko was using a Yaesu FT-1000MP and an amp, but he let us know next time we would be running his Collins 32V-2.

As the night moved into morning the DX action slowed and a nice ragchew began to take over with big (9+30dB or bigger) signals from all stations. There were several still going when I signed at about 2:40 AM ET.

In all, I'd estimate about 50 stations came and went from all across the USA, and one from New Brunswick and, of course, Finland.

I'll post some audio clips later today.

[W1AEX]

That was great fun. You and Tom did a nice job running stations from the east coast out to the west coast. It was pretty amazing how well some of the west coast stations were hearing us here in the east. OH1TX was very strapping down on 3766. Pretty memorable night/morning of operating!

[K1JJ]

Yep, it was one of the better times we've had working coast to coast -  USA west coast and now the west European coast!

Let's contact Jaakko and see if he'll do this more often.

It was amazing to hear 51 watt Fred and Kerrie work Washington state. Fred also received a favorable report from Europe.


It was quite the time with an AM party going on all night on 3877 and then on 3873 - while we worked  AM DX up on 3885.   Good combination of rag chewing and DX. We all certainly used the spectrum well last night...  

T

[K5UJ]

The weirdness that plagued my operation on the vertical the past few nights seems to have been solved.  It basically came down to common mode RF coming in on the feedline to the noise pickup antenna getting into the SB610 and giving me a non-linear looking pattern.  A few holdover ferrite cores on the feedline (left there from an earlier use) were heating up.  I put about 10 more on the feedline and parked on 3870 at lunchtime and ran about 300 w. for 20 minutes doing test modulation and looking at the 610, scope, fwd and reflec pwr and everything looked A OK so now maybe I'll be heard on the w. coast instead of being pw on the dipole.   I did not have the problem on 160, so there must be some inconvenient length of something that gives me a common mode maxima where it isn't wanted on 75 when I use one side of the 80 m. dipole for noise pickup and tx on the vertical.  When things are the other way around, and I'm txing on the dipole through the matchbox (which isolates the unbal. feed with the link) and using the vertical for noise pickup everything is FB.    Whatever you do, avoid squeezing antennas into a small lot if at all possible    unless you like the fun of solving bizarre antenna problems.

I also took the opportunity of mid-day messing around to sweep the tx audio processing and found a setup to sharply roll off audio at 4 KHz so there's nothing at 5 Kc and above.   Now ready to be neighbor friendly 

When I heard 51 watt Fred working N7UA I thought to myself, That Fred must have a hell of an antenna.

Nice chatting about schools Rob.

73

Rob

[ve6pg]

..hey steve...sounds great, sorry i missed it...what time did this all start?...

..sk..

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

IIRC, around 10-11 PM ET.

..hey steve...sounds great, sorry i missed it...what time did this all start?...

..sk..

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

He's some clips of Jaakko, OH1TX from Finland. Listen how clearly he is being heard it my QTH (and many others). The first is him working Bob, N7UA in Washington state. Next is Dave, W2VW making the link across the Atlantic. Then Tom/JJ and Jaakko discuss equipment.

[W2VW]

tnx fer sharing.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Here Kerri makes the coast to coast connection running 35 Watts.

[K1JJ]

Great recordings, Steve.

Amazing how well Jaakko was being heard at your QTH - just like a local.

The Kerri recording is a classic. Glad you got that one. 7X9, caw mawn.  We're breaking her in good.

T

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Yep, 7x9, even better than Q5. Maybe that's surround sound or something.   

I had a blast last night.

[AJ1G]

Can hear Tron on 3881 buzzarding away on the Hanover Germany Globaltuner...not 7X 9 but good copy nonetheless.

[W2VW]

Classic example of what happens when women are too generous.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

I spoke with Jaakko today. He's been on since with his Collins rigs. He's up for more AM DX action in the near future.

[AJ1G]

Tried working on 3885 about 1 AM this morning...think everyone must have been up late the previous night, no one around.  Band did not seem too hot...did manage to hear my CQ with the ART13 over on the Hanover Germany Globaltuner, PW but copyable enough for a QSO.