Tuesday, April 2, 2013

CT8/PA4N
I finally had a chance to fire up the K3 on Monday afternoon, it has been a very busy weekend besides I have been reading on most blogs how poor the conditions were....even for the digi folks. It was very windy and cold up this way on Monday with the surprise of snow in the morning. We have some 230KV lines at the back of the house and when they start to blowing around some (I guessing) loose insulator cause me some QRN. The blogs were spot on and the bands were not in real good shape at all besides the power line QRN was not helping either. Later in the afternoon the winds settled and the bands had some CW spikes showing on the P3 here and there.
230KV lines out back
I was on 20m and heard CT8/PA4N who was operating from Sao Miguel island (EU-003) on the Azores.  Frank was only going to be on the island until April 3rd so I wanted to give him a shot. The band was not busy at all, they were not running split and since conditions were not that great I pumped the K3 up to 5 watts. With only one repeat of my call I made the contact. As I was entering the logging info into DxLabs there was a pileup developing so it would seem I got in at the right time.  I also noticed that fellow blogger John N8ZYA has also made contact with the team as well.

6 comments:

Dick said...

Oh boy, those hi-tension wires. Lots of them in France. Fortunately not near here. 73 Dick

Paul Stam PAØK said...

Hi Mike, I am glad not having those power lines in the backyard. ;-) gives a lot of troubles for ham radio enthusiasts. A nice contact from Sao Miguel. I will look for those guys. 73 Paul

VE9KK said...

Good morning Dick, funny thing with the power lines is that I have really had no troubles with them. It was not until we had a very windy day that I noticed QRN.
Mike

VE9KK said...

Good morning Paul, overall the power lines have not caused me any troubles. When they do it is only short lived.
Mike

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Hi Mike, yes you told before about the power lines. They could be a real pain causing interference. Nearest powerlines here are at about 3km. Nearest powerplants (3 of them!) are at about 5km away. So far I cannot notice any interference from them. I'm curious when I got the beam up if noise will increase when pointing to those. 73, Bas

VE9KK said...

Good morning Bas, the closet power plant we have out this way is about 70 km away...BUT....the close power lines make up for that! I have been very happy in that the power lines have not been a problem. If they do I will have to get the MFJ 1026 on the problem and see how it does with that type of QRN.
Mike