FD & 6 meters
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I've never worked any 6M contacts until Field Day. Never had a 6M
radio till my old K3 but with my 360' of RG-8 and no 6M antenna, it never happened. A friend recently gave me 360' of 7/8 50 ohm hardline and I found my 160 sloper with my K3s could hear 6M signals and had a reasonably decent SWR. None of my other wire antennas could do either well at all. I noticed a few things in this little foray, 6M from SE Connecticut was only open to the 4th call area. I did make one contact to Rhode Island, not far away. What I found difficult was the intelligibility of many of the 6M stations; many sounded almost like they were on LSB but they were on USB. There was little to understand and it seemed like their signal was maybe compressed. Others were clear as a bell but I only worked a few as my amp is 160-10. I'm guessing some of the radios must have had a problem, I thought it might be indicative of 6M contacts till I heard the clear stations. But well more than half were impossible to tune in easily. Another thing I noticed was when I was using the second preamp in the K3s, I would hear a clicking in the audio as I tuned. It was like every increment from the VFO equalled one low volume click. When I stopped turning the VFO, the clicks stopped. Is this normal? Now I have RI, FL, GA and SC on 6M! Nice to have some new challenges, seeing as ATNO in DXCC have become more rare. 73, Gary KA1J ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[hidden email] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [hidden email] |
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Although licensed since 1958 I had never worked six meters either until the 2009
FD. (I skipped 6, went to 2M where I pioneered SSB on the band and worked Tropo, MS and EME) On that FD, I was casually doing some tune and pounce from home when I decided to listen to 6 with my fairly new K3 and my 80M inverted-vee fed with 200' of RG8. One of the local clubs was cluttering up 50.125 from 9000' up a nearby mountain. Es was going wild so I joined in with the barefoot K3100 (no tuner and a HB preamp) that maybe put out 10W. I worked a few stations on SSB but the locals were making it difficult so I switched to CW and started tuning down from .125. At 50.123 I heard a CQ. It was weak and took some serious listening to pull out the call. I answered him and he came right back with a report. It was JL8GFB! One hour and eight minutes later I worked JA7WSZ on 50.096. So the band was open for over and hour between AZ and JA and apparently no one knew it but me. (I seldom use spots today and didn't use them at all back then) Wes N7WS On 6/27/2016 9:56 PM, Gary Smith wrote: > I've never worked any 6M contacts until Field Day. Never had a 6M > radio till my old K3 but with my 360' of RG-8 and no 6M antenna, it > never happened. > > A friend recently gave me 360' of 7/8 50 ohm hardline and I found my > 160 sloper with my K3s could hear 6M signals and had a reasonably > decent SWR. None of my other wire antennas could do either well at > all. > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[hidden email] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [hidden email] |
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In reply to this post by Gary Smith-2
Hi Gary
FB on the six meter QSOs. You really need a dedicated antenna for six to really enjoy the band. long wires work, but you need something better if you start to get serious. I was operating with a loosely knit group in Kennebunk, Maine, using the call K1N. We set up at a school and had my K3 on 80 thru 15 meters with two wire antennas strung from trees. One was a 3 element 20 meter array with a set of reflectors. The reflector was not set correctly due to a lack of suitable trees. It still seemed to work OK. The second wire antenna was a simple doublet. Both were fed with open wire line. We ran 5 watts on solar power. I had a second K3 on six meters and dragged a 7 element 31 ft boom yagi along with 30 ft of Rohn 25. We used 1/2" hardline for the feedline. With the yagi, we heard a lot more than we could work, hearing other Field Day stations near New York City in NLI, NNJ,and ENY, but could not attract their attention with our puny 5 watts QRP signal. The band did open on Sunday morning and we worked a fair amount of Es stations in a few Florida sections, GA, AL, SC, and NC. The beam helped out a bunch and we were almost competitive with the local 100 watt FD stations. Locally, we worked ME, NH, VT, EMA, WMA, ENY, and heard RI, CT, NLI, EPA, and NNJ, Our QRP status and poor VHF location gave me the idea to bring a good beam antenna to help us out. I am glad I brought it. Yes I heard some raunchy sounding signals too. 100 watt bricks running on low batteries with mic gain fully clockwise can take your breath away! That ticking sound you heard is an artifact of the K3 synthesizer on a few bands including six meters. There is a mod to help cure it. You can hear it on a quiet band or with no antenna attached to the antenna jack. Dave K1WHS ps. A few guys thanked us for giving them Navassa this past winter. (tongue in cheek!) On 6/28/2016 4:56 AM, Gary Smith wrote: > I've never worked any 6M contacts until Field Day. Never had a 6M > radio till my old K3 but with my 360' of RG-8 and no 6M antenna, it > never happened. > > A friend recently gave me 360' of 7/8 50 ohm hardline and I found my > 160 sloper with my K3s could hear 6M signals and had a reasonably > decent SWR. None of my other wire antennas could do either well at > all. > > I noticed a few things in this little foray, 6M from SE Connecticut > was only open to the 4th call area. I did make one contact to Rhode > Island, not far away. > > What I found difficult was the intelligibility of many of the 6M > stations; many sounded almost like they were on LSB but they were on > USB. There was little to understand and it seemed like their signal > was maybe compressed. Others were clear as a bell but I only worked a > few as my amp is 160-10. I'm guessing some of the radios must have > had a problem, I thought it might be indicative of 6M contacts till I > heard the clear stations. But well more than half were impossible to > tune in easily. > > Another thing I noticed was when I was using the second preamp in the > K3s, I would hear a clicking in the audio as I tuned. It was like > every increment from the VFO equalled one low volume click. When I > stopped turning the VFO, the clicks stopped. Is this normal? > > Now I have RI, FL, GA and SC on 6M! Nice to have some new challenges, > seeing as ATNO in DXCC have become more rare. > > 73, > > Gary > KA1J > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:[hidden email] > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html > Message delivered to [hidden email] > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[hidden email] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [hidden email] |
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In reply to this post by Gary Smith-2
Message: 22
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2016 00:56:16 -0400 From: "Gary Smith" < [hidden email] > Message-ID: < [hidden email] > " Extracts: I've never worked any 6M contacts until Field Day...my 160 sloper with my K3s ... 6M from SE Connecticut was only open to the 4th call area. ...What I found difficult was the intelligibility of many of the 6M stations; many sounded almost like they were on LSB but they were on USB. There was little to understand and it seemed like their signal was maybe compressed. Others were clear as a bell but I only worked a few as my amp is 160-10. I'm guessing some of the radios must have had a problem, I thought it might be indicative of 6M contacts till I heard the clear stations. But well more than half were impossible to tune in easily." -Gary KA1J Gary, I ran our 6 Meter station for the W0NT 7E effort using my K3S, the first time, and the club's 5 element yagi. Propagation is always a crap shoot on 6M. This year was characterized at our site by popcorn openings-an opening that seemed to explode open with a station's call and then disappear as quickly. The openings were sporatic. Heard IL, WI and actually worked a few TN stations.. Some audio signals were garbled, like aurora, EME, or long path and were very hard to copy. I had no large openings that would have allowed me to test the filtering capabilities of the K3S! Darn!!!! Roughly 25 contacts for 24 hrs...not up to expectations! No Es into California, which was running the past few days before FD. Perhaps the yagi was too much antenna. A simple 6M dipole might have been a better choice. Thought about constructing one during the exercise but didn't want to miss any time away from the radio. Plenty of time to hone the antennas and technique between now and next FD. Jim KC0TRK ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[hidden email] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [hidden email] |
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In reply to this post by David Olean
On Tue,6/28/2016 6:10 AM, David Olean wrote:
> FB on the six meter QSOs. You really need a dedicated antenna for six > to really enjoy the band. long wires work, but you need something > better if you start to get serious. Yes, BUT -- before I had a 6M antenna at my new QTH in W6, I had a pair of 80/40 fan dipoles up about 120 ft, fed with RG11. When 6M opened, I used them, switching between them on RX to see which heard the DX better and called on that antenna. With 100W, I made at least a dozen double-hop CW QSOs split between KH6 and W1/2/3/4, as well as a lot of single-hop Qs. My 3-3el SteppIR with the added fixed element works better. :) 73, Jim K9YC ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[hidden email] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [hidden email] |
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In reply to this post by Gary Smith-2
Dave,
Still waiting on ARRL for my K1/W1AW card from your 2m eme operation during the Centennial Year. Regarding use of a long wire for 6m, I completely agree. Yes, you may be able to load such an antenna but it will hardly operate efficiently (multiple lobes in unknown directions). A friend uses a G5RV on 6m with his IC910H and does not get out enough radiation to produce a copyable signal at my QTH only 15 miles away (I am using either KX3 or K3+PR6 with 6-element yagi which can copy 6m eme signals). He might do better loading a dummy load? He has 6m yagi but has not yet installed it. Much better putting up a simple 6m dipole than trying to load an HF antenna. I built one with some 1/2-inch conduit and a board for center insulator which worked roving in one of the VHF Contests. I was away from home on FD so not able to monitor any of the bands (20m was hoping late at night when we got home). First year in many that I did not help my local club with FD. 73, Ed - KL7UW http://www.kl7uw.com "Kits made by KL7UW" Dubus Mag business: [hidden email] ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[hidden email] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [hidden email] |
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IC-910H on 6 m !?!? Mine only covers 2 m to 23 cm ;-)
73's. Jacques F6AJW/IN93EK Envoyé de mon iPhone > Le 29 juin 2016 à 19:10, Edward R Cole <[hidden email]> a écrit : > > Dave, > > Still waiting on ARRL for my K1/W1AW card from your 2m eme operation during the Centennial Year. > > Regarding use of a long wire for 6m, I completely agree. Yes, you may be able to load such an antenna but it will hardly operate efficiently (multiple lobes in unknown directions). A friend uses a G5RV on 6m with his IC910H and does not get out enough radiation to produce a copyable signal at my QTH only 15 miles away (I am using either KX3 or K3+PR6 with 6-element yagi which can copy 6m eme signals). > > He might do better loading a dummy load? He has 6m yagi but has not yet installed it. Much better putting up a simple 6m dipole than trying to load an HF antenna. I built one with some 1/2-inch conduit and a board for center insulator which worked roving in one of the VHF Contests. > > I was away from home on FD so not able to monitor any of the bands (20m was hoping late at night when we got home). First year in many that I did not help my local club with FD. > > 73, Ed - KL7UW > http://www.kl7uw.com > "Kits made by KL7UW" > Dubus Mag business: > [hidden email] > > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:[hidden email] > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html > Message delivered to [hidden email] Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[hidden email] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [hidden email] |
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