BrainOut!
The mumblings of a Christian autistic husband, dad, IT guy and amateur radio operator - Will Brokenbourgh / AF7EC
Well - I Tried
RBN results for Saturday
(right-click image and choose 'View in new tab' for bigger size)
Just a quick one...
I finally made a 40 meter coil for my paint-pole antenna and was eager to test it out, so with my family away for the day I set things up in my living-room and tried calling CQ for a big portion of the day. You can see in the RBN results above that I actually made an effort but only one station came back to me, and QSB (fading) was just so bad that I couldn't make out their whole call. God bless them for trying -- they went out of their way to repeat the call over and over again.
I started off with the SW-3B CW-only (Morse code only) QRP transceiver then later in the day set up the Xiegu G106. The G106 did okay on CW but when I called CQ for at least an hour on SSB (single-sideband voice), no one replied. When I watched the power output reading when speaking into the microphone, it was not very much compared to sending CW, so I'll have to investigate that further.
The 40 meter coil did okay, although the radiation pattern and distance were not as good as I've had on 20 meters (see pic below).
RBN map for Saturday
Orange is 40 meters, purple is 20 meters
Because the 40 meter radials / counterpoises are so much longer than 20 meter's is, it was difficult to deploy them inside of our small house. 20 meter radials are fairly short and will fit in the room, thirty-three feet for 40 meters is almost the full length of our house. Anyway, I'll eventually have to try it outside when it's less soggy and stretch the radials all the way out and see how it goes then.
I did try using the WSPR test that Kevin - K0KLB uses, but I was not picked up by anyone, so not sure if I was doing it wrong or...?
Sure, lots of folks say 'Life's too short for QRP!' but I disagree. I think QRP (low power transmission) is the ultimate trainer and test of amateur radio. If you can make efficient antennas and use special techniques to get a five watt signal across the country, you've learned an important skill. You can use small batteries during portable use and not need a huge monster battery to power your 100 watt transceiver. But to each their own -- there's enough room in the hobby / service to do whatever you like.
Have a great rest of your week!
God bless you, and thank you for reading!
About me
First and foremost I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. After that, I'm a blessed husband,
father and grandfather. I do remote computer work for a living although it's mostly
part-time. I'm an amateur radio operator - AF7EC. When I'm not working on the endless
list of house and car projects, I like to tinker with electronics, like to listen to
shortwave radio and write software (mostly open-source) in C, C++, Python and Free
Pascal. I usually run Linux as my main operating system but sometimes I'm forced to
endure macOS and Windows 11 for gaming with my son or testing software. Overall, I am
a big nobody, but always willing to share about Jesus and all that God has done for me
and my family.
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