I had some fun this morning when I stretched my 15 meter dipole out in the upstairs room. This antenna is only seven feet longer than the end fed 10 meter wire and I easily found the extra space I needed by running it from the bathroom window sill to the bedroom curtain railing. (very much like the end fed wire for 10 meters)
My only fear was that the wire might be too close to the metal medicine cabinet and absorb my radio signal. Happily, that didn't seem to happen when I got on the air.
Although I didn't hear, or work any DX, I heard some good strong stations in New Mexico (KE1R) and the state of Washington. My last contact was a friend and fellow blogger in California. Dave (AA7EE) was operating QRP with a vertical antenna. It's always good to work a "coast to coast" QRP station. We immediately recognized each others calls and it was a real joy to say hello.
The Washington state contact (WA7UQE) was a "FISTS" club member and we exchanged club numbers. We both had such good signals from each other that I decided to drop my power down to one watt. He could still hear me well even though QSB was causing a small problem.
I missed an opportunity for a "1000 MPW" contact with this station. If I had originally responded with one watt, at a little over 2,000 miles, he would have made # 15 for me.
When I find the band open, I'll be using the 15 meter dipole again . Although I missed the opportunity for a 2,000 miles with a watt contact, when I hear the next strong station on 15 meters, I'll immediately drop power to the very minimum.
2 comments:
Hello John, Making an enjoyable QSO is more important. There will be many opportunities, to work with the lowest possible power, or a fixed power of 500 mW for a start.
Merry Christmas
73, Bert
100%--distance is becoming less and less important to me.
Merry Christmas to you.
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