Just thought I would drop by and have a quick catch up with you all. We are all back at work and school after a couple of weeks of having covid and other than been very tired on an evening nothing too bad to report, other than its a slow comeback.As for the radio activity I have recently spent a considerable amount of shack time working the satellite bands. Since I carried out the antenna work on the satellite array over the summer I can say my satellite operation has been awesome. The signals are much improved both on TX and RX and I have made many excellent QSO on SO-50, AO-91, ISS, RS-44, XW-2 Sats. I definitely cannot wait to be back on the satellites over the Christmas holidays as the passes are now more frequent in the day time when I am usually working. The good news is there are only two days to go and the holiday period at college starts! Yay hay!  I have checked the 40m band out most evenings and although I have been tired and not feeling like calling CQ I have worked a couple of decent DX and heard a few JA signals as well as YB and VK along with North Africa so things are stating to pick up at my end. Quite often I am hearing plenty of Europe and they seem to be working lots of DX on 40m but here in North England the signals are not quite reaching my antenna the same. I have tried both vertical and horizontal and have found that for 40m the Hustler Vertical with radials is the better performer by far. With the Ameritron AL-811 and its two GI7BT ceramic valve upgrade I can power up the vertical nicely and get out quite well, I just need to time things right and catch a decent opening on the band. So folks I will continue checking the band conditions this evening and tomorrow as I run up to the weekend and once again then the late night DX can happen lol. 73 good DX have a great Christmas holiday and hope to work you soon. Stay well! |
