With my latest antenna, the 5m long X-7000 vertical, and the improved cable (20m 1/2 inch plus a bit of LMR400 type), and an added preamplifier, I have, until now just been able to work locally up to about 6km.
Today a new station appeared on 1297.5MHz at a distance of about 15km. He had a good signal, and a call provided a nice QSO, al be it with some fading, most likely due to small antenna movements creating phasing phenomena.
He has a bit more output power than I do, so my signal was not too strong, but we could make a full QSO.
Tonight I made a test with another, well placed station in one of my good directions. He was about 50km away, and when we tried SSB I could hear his signal, but no reception the other way.
As I have a preamplifier near the antenna, and he has not, I suspect we could have made a QSO if he used a preamplifier at the antenna. We both use 10W. Not a bad result with just vertical omnidirectional antennas on 1296MHz.
I really do need to get a rotating (horizontal) antenna up and running on 1296MHz. It will take some work, as I need to get the rotator up and running first, and I should add small antennas for 2m, 70cm and also microwave bands, such as 2.4 and 10GHz.
The other microwave bands must wait a bit, as the (weather proofed) outdoor transverters need to be assembled.
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