7.160 anyone?

[KX5JT]

Calling CQ, it's 1:40 am Central... someone tried to come back to me pissweak.. but the frequency is clear at the moment.

John

[k4kyv]

Maybe they are all at Dayton.

[KB5MD]

Thunderstorm here, so no radddyioing tonight.  Continuing work on the vertical tomorrow.

[KX5JT]

Dayton?  Seems I heard something about that. 

Hey Roy, Heard you on with W4TP.  Both of you were breaking the 20 db over 9 noise floor here just fine.  You mentioned a 66 ft? vertical?  That should play well to the outer fringes of the country!  Probably skip right over me.  What's the plan for radials?

John KX5JT

[flintstone mop]

So I guess that any attempt to try A.M. would be after folks go to bed or just get lucky if the freq is not in use, cuz monitoring lately it is pretty busy with SSB.

Fred

[k4kyv]

Sometimes the frequency is clear in late afternoon.  That's a good time to stake a claim.  If enough people show up at the right times and propagation remains, it's not too much a problem to hold the frequency throughout the evening. A few slopbucketeers might piss 'n moan, but let 'em rant. The frequency is in use.

Because of the crowded condx in that part of the band, I usually switch in the 3400~ low-pass audio filter, and make it a point to stay exactly zero beat with the station in QSO. The slopbucketeers have more legitimate a gripe when members of an AM roundtable in a crowded band are scattered up and down the band +/- 1 kc/s or more.

What is needed is a revised band plan that reflects the newly vacated frequencies by broadcasters. The US phone band should be expanded down to 7075 or at least, down to 7100.  RTTY/Data should be coordinated worldwide to a specific segment in the band to reduce the ongoing conflict between data and CW. Right now, when propagation is at its best, we have segments that are overcrowded (like 7125-7200), while other segments remain underused (like 7060-7125).

With the disappearance of most of the broadcasters below 7200, there is no longer any justification for allowing hams in Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and US overseas territories to operate phone on 7075-7100 while denying access to hams in the lower 48.

And someone needs to bomb that @%#$&!! Ethiopian jamming transmitter into oblivion!  

[KB5MD]

John, it's a 51' vertical, modeled after a Hy-gain hytower.  24' of rohn 25 tower with a 27' aluminum tubing element out the top.  I worked all weekend on it and have 35 radials down and counting.  I plan to put down a few each afternoon until I hit the magic number.
The radiation resistance now stands at 62 ohms with an SWR of 1.3.  It will work out okay if the darn chickens don't scratch up the radials.  I ran an electric fence around it all to keep the goats out. I just have the radials pinned to the ground rather than buried.  If the weather will ever cooperate for a low static night I can try it out.

[k4kyv]

Those must be awfully thin radials if chickens can scratch them out. But if you can keep the chickens off the field so that grass can grow, within a year or so the radials will bury themselves as thatch accumulates over them and sod grows up around them. Eventually it will be hard to pull them up without breaking the wire.

[KB5MD]

BIG CHICKENS!!!!  lol  No seriously, its #14 and #12 stranded.  There are a few radials left on the site from a couple  years back and they are now about 1.5" into the ground.

[K5UJ]

Well, I just warmed up 7.165 a bit for about 90 minutes calling CQ (7.160 was taken by bucketing 5 down and 2 up or down, can't remember) so I slid up to 165 and put out the carrier and started calling CQ.  Have to mess with the antennas some.  I'm not liking how the dipole is behaving so I need to fiddle with the other antennas; there's some interaction going on.   Need to do a little experimental tuning too to make sure the rig is loaded right but it's pretty close.   I have not been on 40 in so long I have to figure out all over again how to set everything up.  But I was ballpark close and got the usual QRM after I cranked up my CQing, then guys calling me on LSB, one had a good signal and I could figure out my callsign in there so I told him to push the little AM button and try it again.   This turned into a nice 80 minute QSO from 21:40 to 23:00 Z but the band began to get a bit long, long enough for the storm QRN to start coming in so we gave it up to the SSBers.  I was KG5BV's first AM qso on 40 meters; let's hope he has more of them!

Rob

[KX5JT]

Excellent Rob!  It can be a whole lot of fun.  I imagine Paul felt the same thrill converting Jews and Pagans to Christianity!

[KX5JT]

I'm putting some calls out now on 7.164 AM

John

[KX5JT]

Broadcast station came online @ 4:00 UTC  just as K9AMR came back to me on a B&W5100.  Very nice signal.  We moved to 7.215 playing a bit of leap frog around foreign BC stations.

John

[K9AMR]

  Well,

It lasted a few minutes anyway hi hi. I can just barely  tell
you are there John.

I will listen a while to see if we get conditions back.

73's
JD
K9AMR

[KX5JT]

Wow!  It sure does change around fast.  JD, you were solid and holding at 20db over 9 a few minutes back.  Ah well it was fun while it lasted.

[KX5JT]

Okay I'm off this weekend and so I'll be calling CQ on 7.160 AM whenever I am in the shack and it's open.  If it's occupied I may look for a nearby open frequency or even go up to 7.290 territory. Support 40 meter AM!

[KC4VWU]

Heard you calling CQ early this morning on 3885 John, but figured the Bandmaster's 20W carrier wouldn't hack the band conditions, so I didn't even fire it up. Had the FT-401B working great, but it turns out one of the final tubes' plate starts to get a little red in the face when the key is held a few minutes. Swapped the tubes in the sockets and it seems to follow the tube, so until I can get a pair that are reasonably matched, the Yaesu will remain shelved. Have enough parts now to start on a HB tx, so I guess it's time to do some figuring.

73, Phil

[Knightt150]

I am back on 40m as of the 21st low static levels and better prop than 75 this time of year. The sun spot activity is up so 40 M is better than 75. 75 M is a good winter time band.

CQ CQ this is W9BFO running a JOHNSON RANGER and driving a pair of 572B's.

[KX5JT]

7.165 right now, having fun

[WA3VJB]

Support 40 meter AM!

I had about an hour's worth of QSO with stations in Columbus, O., East Tennessee (our own WB4BFS/John), Kentucky, North Carolina, and Illinois (Dave W9AD) this morning on 7.288kc between 10-11:30AM Eastern time.

Band wasn't really sorted out yet, but there were good signs of life.

Maybe tonight ?  Quote me a time frame.

[KX5JT]

Support 40 meter AM!

I had about an hour's worth of QSO with stations in Columbus, O., East Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois this morning on 7.288kc between 10-11:30AM Eastern time.

Band wasn't really sorted out yet, but there were good signs of life.

Maybe tonight ?  Quote me a time frame.

I'll be up most of the night Paul, 40 meter is getting pretty busy right now (4 pm Central) but I'm still plugging away at AM QSO's, presently talking K5LYT....

[k4kyv]

I guess I waited too late.  Tried about 6 PM Central and heard nothing but SSB chasing DX.

[KX5JT]

Funny Don, I was about to call CQ on 7.160 around that time and then I heard our WB3HUZ come on in sideband working guys in europe.  *sigh* 

I hear there's an "AM BASH" of some sort on Saturday nights at 2:00 UTC (9pm central) that should get started up in 15 minutes on 3.700 AM  I think it might be mostly West Coasters, not sure, Scotty, W5SPE told me about it so I'm listening there.  I had to add some pigtails to my dipole to get the swr okay there on 3.700.

John KX5JT

[WA3VJB]

Just worked Gary WA1OXT on his Flex 5K sounding quite delicious. First time he's been on 40m in more than a decade.

He was in QSO with Frank, KB4T on 7160kc when I broke in to hang out for a while 0200-0230Z.

[k4kyv]

9:48 PM local time. 0248 GMT.  That means it's the wee hours in the morning in Europe now, so maybe the DX activity has dwindled.

I'll try listening as soon as I can get out to the shack.  We still have about an hour before the Ethiopian jamming party starts up at 0400 GMT.

Last night I noted white noise jamming simultaneously on 7165, 7175 and 7185, wiping out an entire swath from 7160 to 7190.  This has been going on for a few evenings now.  I don't hear any BC station under  the noise at 7185, but it goes away when the others do, usually after 0500.  But by then the Europeans are waking up and the band again fills up with DX chasers while the skip often goes too long for domestic QSOs.

Due to the US's unique FeeCee band restrictions, we have only 75 kc of broadcast-free phone band at night, and over a third of that is wiped out by this useless jamming.

Someone needs to pinpoint the jamming signal, send a plane over and bomb the shit out of that transmitter site.