985 Workbench: 2024-07-15

My Week in Radio

  • I saw Ron’s photos from Sussex County Ham Fest
    • I only go looking for connectors and gadgets, not real gear.
  • Enjoyed Luke’s talk at breakfast
    • cat whisker and spark gap
    • reminds me of the books I read as an elementary student
      • crystal radios
      • want to build one again and see about tuning it for medium and shortwave
  • POTA: Caledonia
    • used the 12.5M EFRW instead of EFHW
    • afternoon, 40m was dead
    • 20m and 15m was very busy with SSB contesters
    • 15, 17, 20: all EU, and very little local, via FT8 and SSB, but they couldn’t hear me.
      • atmospheric diode?
    • only made 4 contacts in the hour I tried
  • Tape Measure YAGI is amazing for hearing the workbench
    • I didn’t want to need to pick a direction, but seems OK for these longer sessions
  • Purchased an inexpensive variac
    • so now I need an old radio with some questionable capacitors. :)
  • I’ll be at the breakfast, then finding a park to activate afterward.
  • Writing a bit for the blog in down times

Others’ News

  • Ron, WA3VEE
    • Sussex County Ham Fest
    • photos
  • Luke, KC3SCY
    • spark gap and cat whisker
      • receiver working
    • GOJO cleaner without abrasive is good for cleaning wood
  • Keith, KB3ILS
    • Lots of extended propagation on 2m
  • Jack, K3YVQ
    • listening to longer-distance simplex on 2m calling frequency
  • Jim, AF3Z
    • some CW
    • contests upcoming
      • IARU HF contest
      • SKCC Sprintathon
      • Flight of the Bumblebees QRP

Question

  • Perseids meteor storm coming this month, What’s involved in working meteor scatter?
    • Widen topic to: Any special propagation modes?
    • Jim: e-skip?
    • Row, WA3VEE:
      • Tropospheric ducting
        • temperature inversion
        • listen to FM broadcast in the morning
          • difficult to hear local
          • hearing much longer distances
          • it’s a mess of overlap
          • means there’s an opening in 2m
        • dxinfocentre.com for tropo forecasts
      • Meteor showers
        • listen to 6m.
    • Chuck, NA3CW
      • Signal around the world
        • 1-2 second delay to hear your own “hello”
        • Japan at 10w
        • 1-way propagation
          • atmosphere is turbulent
          • photons strike into ionized air molecules and electrons
          • the wave jiggles the electrons in the air, and they retransmit
            • this “reflection”
          • signals going the other direction may hit different conditions along the way.
    • KC3WWC: antenna orientation?
    • W1RC, Mike:
      • Digital modes for studying propagation, since it can be monitored
    • WA3VEE, Ron
      • EM energy is released when an electron drops into a lower orbital
      • RBN and pskreporter

See also