Monday, September 22, 2014

Making your radio time interesting is what counts!

I spent some time on 20m in the CW portion of the band and as always I wanted to make contacts with the lowest power possible. I came across 9A2G who was calling CQ and at the time he was not to busy with takers. This is a great opportunity for me to drop my call to someone who is listening. I started out at 500mW's and moved all the way up to 5 watts and nothing no contact. He did have some stations answer his CQ  and some where very weak so  he had good ears but not for VE3WDM. I then came across EG7MAL and I worked my way up to 5 watts and he came back to me with VE3?. He decided to move on as I was just not making the trip. At this point I was wondering how my low power signal was doing so I decided to call CQ at the QRP watering hole on 20m. I was checking with the Reverse Beacon Network to see how I was doing.  My 500mW signal was heard by AA4VV in North Carolina which was just over 1,000 miles per watt. I then bumped my power up to 1 watt and was very happy to see F4DXW was hearing me which meant my 1 watt of power made it 3461 miles. I did not make any contacts but I did find a way to make the radio evening a bit exciting even without making a two way contact.

4 comments:

Dick said...

Hi Mike. I frequently go to the RBN to see how my CW QRP signal is being heard. What I find interesting is the number of QRP QSOs I have...yet no spots on the RBN. So, that system can work both ways. 73 Dick

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Hello Mike, I would be very disappointed when a QSO almost did happen and in the end you could not make it. With Spanish station I have the experience most of them have bad receive or bad ears. Could be a wrong observation though. Well, at least you got some fun. 73, Bas

VE9KK said...

Good morning Dick, that's very turn and it's sure is the other side of the coin to not just pay attention to the spots. I too have made contacts and some DX and RBN has me with no spots at all.
Mike

VE9KK said...

Good morning Bas, this was a special event station for the soccer over that way and I guess he was interested in making lots of contacts…..but at the moment I was trying to contact him he had no one calling him.
Mike