Day 6 February QSO Challenge

-

Today's challenge was the most difficult so far. I tried to make some QSO's via VO-52 and SO-50 without any success so I spent some time listening around 20m and 40m in the hope of hearing an interesting or possible DX station to try and work.

Conditions were not so good but eventually I did find VE2CAQ coming in loud and clear up on the 20m band. VE2CAQ was operating very well and managed to get through many of the stations that were calling him. I tried calling for about 15 minutes when I got lucky and finally punched through the pile up.

VE2CAQ - Chris was 5/9 at my end and he said I was coming in the same 5/9 signal with good audio from my Heil Goldline GM5 base Mic.
Our QSO took place at 20.04 utc on 14.265MHz. My computer log notified me that I had worked Chris back in March 2006 on the same band

Another completed challenge for Day 6 and an opportunity to see the shack and antenna array of VE2CAQ at a total DX Distance of 3057 miles short path to Sherbrooke, Quebec.


















VE2CAQ Shack and Antenna. No wonder I could hear him loud and clear!


   
































Thanks for following the February QSO challenge, if your doing it as well good luck and watch out for
me somewhere on the bands. 73

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New DX Contact 0n 12 Meters

-
Image
Today I managed a nice QSO with Tom ZD7X who is located at St. Helena which is quite a distance away from my location. I managed to work Tom ZD7X with a 5/9 report operating my FT-767GX with my home brew 20m delta loop assisted with the MFJ-969 to tune the antenna with 50 watts on 12 meters. 12M is rarely open and I have only had a few QSOs on this band so I guess the new Cycle has begun at last! Good DX de 2E0HTS 73
Read more

Full Size Delta Loop for 20M

-
Image
I came across a simple delta loop design courtesy of dxzone found on the net some time ago and have been planning to give it a go for a while. This weekend I had a couple of hours spare, so I decided to give it a go using some 2mm multi strand wire cable, a dipole centre and a mixture of 75 ohm and 50 ohm coaxial cable. The delta loop is supposed to be resonant on 20 meters but I found it to be a little high so at present I am tuning the Loop with my mfj-969 which copes extremely well. The resonant frequency is 13.2 MHz at the moment so the next chance I get, I shall shorten the overall length making sure that each of the three sides are still equal in length, and hopefully adjusting the antenna for maximum performance ATU free for 14.2 MHz. I believe the miscalculation in the resonant length is probably down to the fact that my wire is covered in the plastic sleeving from the manufacturer which always effects the swr as I have noticed in past experiments with dipoles you always get sl
Read more

Homebrew 40/80 Trap Dipole Design

-
Image
This Antenna design was one that I used about 4 years ago, it worked exceptionally well on 80m and 40m. The size of the antenna makes a Half wave length on 80 meters, and with the traps a half wave on 40m with a SWR (standing wave ratio) of 1:1-1.5 across both bands. It worked well also on 20m with the use of an A.T.U (antenna tuning unit). I made my version of this antenna using 3mm multi strand copper cable which I left covered by the PVC insulation. The traps can either be home brewed using some 40mm diameter plastic drain pipe and winding wire around the pipe approximately 10 turns, then connected in line after the 10 metre lengths. Or the alternative is to purchase some commercially made 7.1 MHz traps, and fit them in line the same way. The antenna can be fed with 50 ohm coax with a home brew balan or again a commercially purchased balan. The wire lengths of the dipole are 2x 10 metres and 2x 6.7 metres as shown on the diagram above. This antenna can be mounted quite low to the gr
Read more