Topband: ARRL 160m
I thought conditions were fairly good, especially on Friday Night. The big NA signals were peaking over S9 here in NorthEast England. I spent about 3 hours in total on the band, and managed to work around 70 North American stations, including across to Florida, Virgin Islands, Colorado and Texas. I heard dozens more NA stations . . . but couldn't call them as they were working other NA stations on their frequency. Generally I was pretty pleased how well I was being received through the local QRM. I think every station I called bar one came back to me. 73 Roger G3YRO _ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
Topband: ARRL 160m
I spent several hours listening to big gun stations Sunday morning with decent signals to Japan. JA activity appeared very good as on several of the gun stations there were multiple JA responding to CQ's. North American propagation was good but not great. I'll note that East coast sunrise peak didn't seem to exist and callers to the west were rather weak. ARRL 160-Meter Contest - 2020 Call: W7RH Operator(s): W7RH Station: W7RH Class: SO Unlimited LP QTH: Arizona Operating Time (hrs): 5 Remote Operation Summary: Total: QSOs = 171 Sections = 66 Countries = 7 Total Score = 24,354 Club: Arizona Outlaws Contest Club Comments: This was a part time entry due to family commitments. Propagation in North America was OK.EU was very spotty or non existent. There appeared to be a big opening to JA from west coast but most were weak and not heard by many. 73 Bob W7RH -- W7RH DM35OJ “Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.” – Albert Einstein _ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
Topband: DXE Thunderbolt
David I'm inclined to agree with the other Gs . . . you could do this MUCH more cheaply yourself (maybe a tenth of the cost) . . . and probably make a stronger and more efficient antenna. 21ft thick-walled alloy scaffold aren't that expensive, yet are extremely strong . . . and if you see a scaffold van parked, ask the driver how much he could let you have a couple for (I think you'd be surprised!) Clamp 2 together, and add another 21ft normal thickness pole on top (obtainable from any TV aerial company). Then increase the length with a horizontal wire section, to get it resonant. Personally, I wouldn't even use the poles as the radiator . . . easier to just run a thick wire from the top to a couple of feet out from the bottom . . . if you want to increase efficiency use 6 wires in a cage. And if you do that, you could use a fibreglass top section - old Windsurfing masts are cheap as chips on eBay and VERY strong ! (I still Windsurf, so have several of these) 73 Roger G3YRO _ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
Topband: DXE Thunderbolt
David G3WGN, I'm sure you must have some tall trees down there in the Dart Valley! You could save yourself a bundle in shipping charges alone by putting up a simple wire inverted 'L' or a 'T'. Use a pneumatic tennis ball launcher to place the halyard over the tree at the highest point. I have one of these and will even come down and do it for you as you're not far away! My 'L' is 90 feet up and 43 feet out to another tree. It is matched at 1825 KHz by a simple 1,600 pf high voltage ceramic capacitor as an L-network from base to the radial field. These caps are hard to come by these days, so rather than making the antenna slightly longer and inductive, it is probably better to make it slightly shorter and capacitive and then matching with a small shunt inductor, known as a 'hairpin'. Look forward to hearing you on 160! 73 Tom G3OLB _ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
