The AM Forum

Well, it's VHF to me at least  ;)   For me, 29 MHz is waaaaaay up there, almost six meters, but in desperation, there I was calling CQ on 29.000 today with my 50 watt plastic radio and 20 m. dipole and matchbox.   And, I found out the 75A-3 is pretty good on 10 meters and even more amazing a guy came back to me.  It turned out he was Ted KC9BAQ about 1/2 a mile away operating a radio shack HTX-10 with 5 watts to a whip antenna, but so what--we still had a nice half hour QSO without storm QRN.  Ted mostly operates ATV and FM in the 900 MHz and 1.2 GHz bands, but who knows, maybe he'll get more interested in AM!   He did in fact do the carbon mic in the antenna line thing years ago to put out a phone signal which sort of blew my mind because I had read about Hoisey doing that in the 1930s so I told him he was very vintage  :D

Hey Rob,
Ifn  ur home tomorrow morning I'll call a few CQs at 29.000 around 10AM EDT. I know you guyz over there are on some other funky time zone thingee.

Okay Budley, I'll be listening/CQing (if nothing heard); this will be cool!

I checked the Vaisala thunderstorm map thingy and east of the mississippi looks like a wall covered with thrown snowballs  ???
Didn't even bother to check the low bands tonight. 

Hey Rob..... it's 9:37 AM here. Lemme do 1 more chore and I'll head the beam westward.
Looks like I'll make the 10AM EDT sked!!!!

TNX for the first AM contact this cycle on 29000 Mcs.
Ralph

With Bud WD8BIL that is.

Well, here's what happened here:   I put out a few CQs on 29.0 at 9 a.m. (actually a few minutes before 9) and intermittently messed around with various receivers because I began to suspect the 75A-3 was lacking in sensitivity some, but anyway, tried two others and never heard anything.  But, a friend down in Indianapolis scanned the band with a panadaptor and a FT5000 and didn't see anything either, except for a weak beacon, so we concluded 10 was deadsville.  Or more accurately, it is in that situation where it's not really dead but not wide open either, so a guy like me with 50 watts and a dipole can't do much but if you have a beam up high on a tower you can make something happen.

There was something in our local newspaper yesterday about some VHF communications towers being used for storm warning system.

Typical of the non-technical press, they got the details wrong. The article stated that VHF means "Variable High Frequency".  ::)

I'm still doing antenna work while the bands are too noisy to operate.

Yep, I've about concluded between the QRN and lack of sunspots and summer absorption, "operating" comes down to firing everything up every week or so to make sure it all still works, and that's about it.   Now, we're finally having great wx up here--it is clear, sunny, storm free but the bands stink and at night, there's enough storm QRN from elsewhere to give me 20 dB noise level on 75 so the heck with it.  I saw the lightning storm map last night and went into the shack and turned everything off.  I knew there was no point in trying to work anyone.

Good to run into you Ralph! Looks like south and east are alive here. Sorry Rob I ain't hearing anything out of the west.

YAYYY!  Just put out a CQ west on 29.000 Mhz.  Worked K0EOO in Minn on AM.   He was about S7-S9 on peaks. 
(Check out his vintage shack on QRZ.com!)


I hear ssb down on 28.500 area that is S9+20+ from the southwest, so the band open.

Running about 150w carrier out with the triple 5X5X5 Yagi stack fixed west.

Will try again a little later today.

T

Use the DX Sherlock 2.2 - QSO real time maps to see how the propagation is doing and what bands are hopping at any given time. As a type, 10 meters is open up and down the Atlantic coast line and all the way out to Texas.  20 meters is open world wide. 6 meters is open with Sporadic E and multi-hop E's to Europe, Asia, South America, and the Caribbean. There's more to ham radio then 80 and 40 meters.  :D

http://www.vhfdx.info/spots/map.php?Lan=E&Frec=28&ML=M&Map=NA&DXC=N&HF=S&GL=N

 Stumbled on to this topic just now. What is the carbon mic in the antenna line all about (Hoisey) ? I've never heard of that..I can search QST archives if you can give a month, year and title. Sounds interesting. Thanks. lane

Actually, it was first done in 1901:

"The first amplitude modulated signal was transmitted in 1901 by a Canadian engineer named Reginald Fessenden. He took a continuous spark transmission and placed a carbon microphone in the antenna lead. The sound waves impacting on the microphone varied its resistance and in turn this varied the intensity of the transmission. Although very crude, signals were audible over a distance of a few hundred metres, although there was a rasping sound caused by the spark."

  Thanks Pete..

"   Thanks Pete..  "


I bet he's got the manual.


klc

Or sparks coming off his whiskers.  ;D

Phil - AC0OB