10m FM.
Having a receiver running on 29.600 FM gave results today.
Twice this evening French stations were coming in with S9 signals, so QSOs were attempted calling them with just 5W, as a part of my 5W challenge this year. Both stations came back and I had two real QSOs, as I call them. exchanging more than just reports.
The sporadic E (Es) season is still going on, and 10m has been quite good today. Yes, it is up and down, but there is a reason we name it "sporadic".
HB-1B transceiver.
Also I did some listening with my small Chinese CW transceiver, the HB-1B transceiver for 80,40,30 and 20m. The sensitivity is absolutely sufficient, on 40 and 80 I usually have the attenuator switched in. As the TRX has only about 5W output the sensitivity is not all too critical.
The variable crystal filter works nicely, but the AGC is not quite as good as I would like - it has a slow attack, but it does give some protection against signals that are very strong. Most of the time it actually works well enough to listen to (not all too strong) signals. I need to be able to extend my CW keyer "distributor", so this radio can be added to my CW system.
This could be a nice addition to use in my 5W challenge on the 20-30-40-80m bands. I should probably make myself a diplexer, so my 10-15-20-40-80m dipole can be used on the lowest bands (40 and 80m) with the HB-1B, and another transceiver on 10-15-20m simultaneously. Long term I might make some more multiplexing, so the antenna can be used on all 5 bands (plus 4 and 6m) with different transceivers, or receivers .
2 comments:
Hello Jan,
I wonder if these french stations were calling in FM on that frequency. I thought at some time there was a repeater from NY of 29.600 but I can be mistaken. I'm glad I can make comments again on your blog using name/url. 73, Bas
Hello Bas.
he French stations, and also an Italian one, plus several others the last few days. were indeed calling directly on 29.600 (the calling frequency in the band plan.
73, Jan
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