Heard MOP man Phred on 1885 tonight

[K5UJ]

Fred you had good sounding audio.  There was some QSB but I was listening on my small receive loop that sits a few feet off the ground in the back yard, and my 75A-3.  You were working some guy whom I gathered was over 90 years old but I did not get his call sign because he went into a fade right at the end of his transmission.

[k4kyv]

I have made contacts on 1885 for the past two nights.  2 nights ago, worked WD4AM in NC, and last night a station in TN (forget his call) with a good ricebox signal (he was familiar with AM, and formerly owned a couple of plate modulated rigs).  Each time, others had attempted to join the QSO, but were buried in the background noise. I haven't been getting on the air until after 0400 GMT, and the 160m sidewalks are usually rolled up long before the ones on 75.

After the 160m QSO I moved to 3705 and called several CQs but no response.

Just as I predicted earlier, like annual clockwork, the power lines here have started to act up precisely as the atmospheric QRN is dwindling away. Murphy's Law or cooler temperatures?

Interestingly, it is worse on the beverage than with the dipole, and seems worse on 40m than it is on 75 or 160.  So much for the urban legend of a beverage being a solution to line noise problems.

[K5UJ]

I have been able to work KD8CVY and N8OKR on 1880 earlier in the evening around 7 to 9 p.m. local and last night they came in 20 to 40 dB over 9.  surprisingly as it gets later they lose signal strength so I guess the band starts to stretch out about the time we call it a night. 

Lately I have been getting line noise on the dipoles and verticals but not on the small rx loops.  I would actually like the same noise on all antennas because then it is easy to null out. 

the small rx loops have been great on the rare occasion I am up late enough to hear the west coast.   Stations out there with decent antennas and/or at least 300 w. have been pretty readable once I get the sweet spot on the RF and AF gain pots and wear headphones.  Sometimes I don't need the cans.  If I switch to the tx antennas they disappear in the noise.