Saturday, August 22, 2015

The HF bands were dead today.

I was on the HF bands today and there was a QSO party happening state side but other than that the bands were dead. Is this what I have been missing for the past few months?? I am thinking the way to go at this point in time may be the digi modes? Once again I will have the joy of setting up my sound card modes…..thats always "fun". I ordered Win7 64 bit and according to the online tracking it should be here Monday. Not wanting to really setup any radio related programs on my desktop PC as when I install Win 7 64 bit it's going to be a clean install. Time to head out and  pick up  my better half from work, hope your weekend is going well out there!

6 comments:

Dick said...

Mike for the past several days I have been running close to 50 watts from an old FT-707 that I picked up used recently. No big difference between 5 and 50 watts success rate. In effect, practically nil nil on 17 and 20 meters. The times they are a changin'....73 Dick

VE9KK said...

Good evening Dick very nice to hear from you. By the sounds of things I guess it's states side CW contacts and the digi modes.
Thanks for stopping by Dick
73
Mike

Dan - KJ4ODS said...

Do you still use an attic dipole? I'm getting into CW and my LDG S9 antenna works great to pick up 40m at night but I bring it down when it storms. I use the 20m attic dipole as my backup during most of the week because I'm too lazy to keep bringing the LDG vertical up and down. Man have the bands been dead lately. I was just curious what you typically use with your setup.

Thanks!

Dan

VE9KK said...

Good evening Dan, while I was in a townhouse I did use an attic dipole and it was the DX-CC from Alpha Delta. This was a great antenna and I placed it in the attic in a "Z" looking configuration allowing it to fit. This antenna worked 10,15,20 and 40 meters, with an antenna tuner I was able to also work on the WARC bands as well. We are now in our new QTH which is a condo so I have had to change my antenna setup. I now use an MFJ 1788 loop antenna and for the size of the antenna it works great. As for the attic dipole it was the best of both worlds I had a very well preforming antenna and it was not outdoors to have the weather affecting it. One thing you have to be careful of is doing any work to it in the summer as the heat in the attic can be very extreme.
Dan if you have any question what so ever and if there is any way I can assist you please email me at ve3wdm@hotmail.com
73 Mike

KJ4ODS said...

Thanks Mike!! I'll email you with any questions. I will have to check out the DX-CC because I would love to have 40m in the attic. I think I have plenty of room. I'll just have to get some additional details on the z setup you used. I'll shoot you an email.

73s

VE9KK said...

Always happy to get emails.
Mike
73