Back on 10m

After a night looking on 160m RX I came back to 10m TX/;\RX WSPR at 1000z this morning. After a quiet start I am (again) being spotted by 4X1RF and am seeing a station in S.Africa ZS4A (9357km) and Japan JG1KGS (9512km). The band is in good shape yet again. In the afternoon, the band was (again) wide open to the USA and Canada.

UPDATE 1904z:  For me here, the 10m band was STILL open transatlantic at 1904z, VERY late indeed and way after dark..

Top Band WSPR

For a change this evening I've been looking on 160m WSPR with my totally untuned Par 10/20/40m antenna and my FT817.  It is quite amazing what this far from optimised set-up can pick up (see below):

Unique 160m RX WSPR reports since yesterday afternoon

I am unable to TX on 160m, so this is just what I have been able to spot. Best DX was OH6HRX at 1814km.

JT65-HF QSOs on 10m

Today (in between doing the RSPB annual bird count) I had some digital QSOs on 10m with Europe and N. America. The mode works with weak signals but it takes several minutes to complete a QSO. I also tried JT9-1 but there was no activity when I was on. WSPR is easier but does not really support 2-way QSOs whereas JT65-HF and JT9-1 both do.

JT65-HF QSO today

10m - Australia and USA early morning!

Just checked my WSPR spots with 2W on 10m so far this morning (to 1045z) and delighted to see I was received by VK3OER at 16743km and several spots from KD0VWO at 7408km. I have never been spotted in the USA so early in the day! Perhaps this is long path? I see I have spotted JA and VK stations too.

2W 10m WSPR 26.1.14 morning to1045z

10m WSPR still running this evening

Even though the last Stateside DX finished around 1724z, I have left my 2W 10m WSPR kit still running in the hope of catching some 10m GDX this evening, So far nothing heard or seen on the screen.

Heathkit HW8 QRP HF CW Transceiver

Looking back on all the rigs I have owned over the years, the Heathkit HW8 must be up there near the top of the list. I bought mine secondhand ready built in totally unmodified state. It stayed in its original state all the time I owned it. It was eventually sold back to its original owner when I bought a Yaesu FT7 I believe.

https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/hw8/hw8a.jpg?attredirects=0

I could go on the air most days and be sure to work something including plenty of DX on 15m. There are lots of mods on the net but as it is it performs pretty well.  It gets a good score in the reviews on http://www.eham.net . The power out was around 2-3W and the RX a decent direct conversion design. Style-wise it was typical Heathkit - very neat on the desktop. I used mine with the Heathkit PSU.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/hw8 .

These days, the HW8 is hard to find and not cheap, for good reasons.  I liked the looks and performance of mine and regret selling it. I actually preferred it to the 4-band superhet based Elecraft K1 CW rig. If you own no other radios, you can do a lot worse than the HW8. It just works well.  A couple of watts of CW is quite enough to work DX on 20 or 15m as well as loads of UK and EU stations on the lower bands.

JT9-1 QSO on 10m

This evening at 1650z I had a first QSO, in a long time, on 10m JT9-1 digital weak signal mode with 2W RF following my CQ call on 28.078MHz USB dial.  The 2-way QSO was with N8HTG at 5937km.

My calls were also received by several other USA stations such as WO4R, KQ8M and WC0Y according to the PSKreporter website.

JT9-1 is about 2dB less sensitive than WSPR, but it allows 2-way contacts to be made. Using WSJTX software the QSO was straightforward.

Incidentally, K9AN was still copying my 2W 10m WSPR at 1724z which is late in the evening.

10m WSPR Success

Yet again 10m is wide open and USA spots are "ten a penny" this afternoon at 2W. The band has been in good shape now for many weeks. In a moment I am going to swap to JT9-1 to get some 2-way contacts in the log. My speech is still too poor (because of my recent stroke) for SSB, FM or AM.

4X1RF's RX system?

This station in Israel seems to copy my WSPR beaconing on ANY band and at ANY power down to 5mW. I have no idea what he uses on RX but he must be situated in a nice and quiet radio environment to hear so well. Now I EXPECT to be copied in Israel and think my gear is faulty if I am not!

Auto-ATUs for FT817ND

Until it started to misbehave recently, I have used the Elecraft T1 auto ATU with my 12yr old FT817 with good results. Its main use has been to resonate end-fed wire antennas on HF bands.  I always struggled on 160 and 6m.

Does anyone know how the LDG  Z817 auto-ATU compares? It is larger  than the T1 but less expensive.

What would  YOU recommend? I intend to get a new FT1817ND (as a second radio) and auto-ATU, then to fix the old ATU.