I haven’t had a chance to post about Saturday (life gets in the way…..) but I thought I’d take a few minutes to do so now.
The opening on Saturday morning caught me off guard. I woke up early and fortunately checked the bands instead of getting a few more hours of sleep and I was glad I did.
I typically use my B&W 5100B and SX-101A on 10M AM and have never run my IC-746 Pro III on 10M AM (at least that I can recall). I’m currently troubleshooting some SCR-274N issues and I have power supplies for those units temporarily on top of the boat anchor gear. I really didn’t want to rearrange things so I decided to run 25W with the ICOM. Funny how a lot of people I know run 100W AM with the same radio….. how dey do dat?
I was stunned at how well the 25W did. I started off with a nice chat with John G3YPZ as previously posted then worked several stations in Wales and England; my farthest contact of the day was with DH7RR in Germany. Some of those DX stations were running vintage gear but quite a few were running modern radios; this is quite different than what I experienced last cycle on 10AM where modern radios were almost never heard. I think this is a good thing – run what you brung; you don’t need vintage gear to enjoy the mode (although I did feel somewhat sacrilegious running my rice rocket while my old steed was staring at me, accusing me in its silence……).
Saturday afternoon at sunset found me pointing the beam towards JA land but I didn’t hear any JAs on AM at that time, although I did work a few on 10 CW.
Later on Saturday evening I worked a fellow in 7 land. He had nice audio and he was running a TS-2000 with a Commander amp. When I mentioned my 5100B he perked up and said a friend of his wanted to sell him his 5100B, nice condition and working for $100, and did I think it was worth it? Well OM, as a matter of fact I do think it’s worth it, and we had a nice chat about the radio. Again, another person trying AM with a modern radio!
I’m glad a lot of folks had a great time on 10M AM this weekend. This kind of got me going and pumped up for the winter season, and I will be getting the shack rearranged this week so the hollow state gear is ready.
