985 Workbench - 2024-05-06

My Week in Radio

  • Backyard antenna
    • build
      • cleaned up the backyard
      • threw wires high in the tree near the top of the hill
      • took my time
        • routing
        • tied and supported solidly,
        • no stress on connectors
      • first floor window to high on the hill
      • the hill is to the east
    • testing, discussion last week
      • made some contacts on 30m
      • switching
      • FT8 on 15m and pskreporter
      • counted decodes in wsjtx
      • new antenna had fewer decodes on average
      • compared the map - missing europe, since it followed the hill and not enough of the antenna is above the ridge
      • old antenna is mostly flat, but is 2nd floor and above
    • scheme to get more of the wire higher
  • Reading the manual for fldigi
    • better prepared for contesting and logging
    • less fixing logs
  • Observing some very boring HF propagation
    • if it weren’t for the propagation reports, I’d think I broke something.
    • leaves also came in on my antenna tree

Discussions

  • Tim, W3QP, talked about sota.
  • Ron, WA3VEE, is helping a new operator shop for equipment.
  • Ron’s going to the antique radio show to sell.
  • Leon, AA3LH, is practicing CW.
  • Jeff, W3JAM, why do we conventionally use LSB and USB?
  • Bill, KC3OOK, does internet time sync work through hotspots?
  • John, KC3WWC, What are better interfaces to SOTA?

See also