Guust is 57

Guust

Guust is 57.
Wat een verassing.
Zo'n 40 Jaar geleden was Guust mijn favoriete stripfiguur.
De boeken zitten in een doos op zolder,
maar mogen (nog) niet weg.

Toen ik de Google doedel zag, moest ik ook aan de meeuw, juffrouw Jannie en de flaterfoon denken. Hi.

Flaterfoon

HA-DX contest 2014

I had great fun with low power in the HA-DX contest.

I had to rediscover, what my Inverted vee would do.
In earlier contest I experienced, that I would need the full power
on 7 MHz and 3.5 MHz.

From the Cabrillo log:
SOAPBOX:       I fixed my Inverted Vee temporarily after a storm last year
SOAPBOX:       One wire is flat on the roof, but I still make QSO's
SOAPBOX:       Had great fun with QRPp and QRP from 100 mW to 5 watts
SOAPBOX:       Thanks for the activity in the contest

On 14 MHz my antenna is still working well.

In many QSO's on 40 m and 15 m, I had to use the full power of the FT-817.
But when the S-meters goes up, I can reduce the power.
I could also make QSO's with QRPp.
I had a remarkable QSO with HG8C.
When I gave my call with 500 mW, there were other stations also calling, but he came back for me.
This doesn't happen often. hi. Most of the time I must wait, till the frequency is clear.
I even had a QSO with 50 mW with RM22HD outside the contest.

REF CW 2014

In the end of January I participated in the REF CW contest.
In recent years I made many QSO's in this contest with 50 mW.

The top of my inverted vee was broken last year in a storm and I made a temporaly repair. One of the wire lays on the roof.
So I had to experience how the antenna would work.

On Saturday I made 2 QSO's on 20 m with 50 mW and 100 mW.
On Sunday I made 14 QSO's on 40 m.
In these QSO's I had to use the full 5 watts of the FT-817 due to the antenna.

Further I made a number of QSO's on 20 m with a power of 50 mW to 500 mW.
The inverted vee with one wire on the roof works for 20 m.
But on 40 m it takes more power to make QSO's.

When the propagation is good, it's not that difficult the make QSO's with very low power.
On Sunday the signal of F6KNB was S9 + 10 dB. So I decided to try a power of 50 mW.
I gave my call just once and got an immediate respons. FB.

ARRL International DX CW

I started late, because the grand children stay with us this weekend.
This afternoon we went to the park in stead of participating in the ARRL int. DX contest.

My inverted Vee is still temporaly fixed after a storm last year.
One wire lays on the roof.
But I can still make QSO's even with low power in many different contests.

I need more power than the usual 1 or 2 watts, that I use most the time.
So I use the maximum power, that is about 4 or 5 watts.
Even the stations that I receive with S8 are more difficult to QSO than last year.

After a few hours in the contests there are 15 QSO's in the log.
But it's still fun to participate in this fine contest.
There was only one station, that was puzzled by my exchange 599 003, when I use about 2.5 Watts. hi
Let see what tomorrow brings.

DL1SDZ's WSPR spots with 0,5 milliwatt

On his blog Hajo DL1SDZ reports spots made with 200 mW down to 0,5 mW on 30 meters.
He reduced the power from day to day.

Hajo wrote me that the 4 last spots with 1 milliwatt were actually made with 0.5 milliwatt.
In the WSPR data Hajo uploaded the spots of 0,5 mW as 1 milliwatt, since this is the lowest value that can be used. (1 mW is 0 dBm)
Because my excell sheet can not calculate with a power lower than 1 milliwatt, I left the values for 1 milliwatt in the analysis of yesterday .

But today I calculated the lowest possible power for the value of 0.5 mW by hand
and made the next table exclusively for the spots with 0.5 mW.

The calculated lowest possible power is, in some spots, only one step lower.

This table show 4 spots in stead of 3.

The table below that I made yesterday, does include spots of 400 km or more,
so it does not include the spot by HB9JAQ

Click to enlarge

This analysis shows the calculated lowest possible power.
The lowest possible power is calculated from the power sent and the SNR.
The lower the lowest possible power, the better the propagation.

WSPR with 200 mW down to 1 mW by Hajo DL1SDZ

More and more operators discover the use of very low power with WSPR.
On his blog Hajo DL1SDZ reports of spots, made with 200 mW down to 1 mW.
Hajo reduced the power from day to day, as shown in the second analysis.

The first analysis shows the calculated lowest possible power.
The lowest possible power is calculated from the power sent and the SNR.
The lower the lowest possible power, the better the propagation.

Click to enlarge

The analysis below shows electrical field strength.
In this calculation the distance is also included.
The lower the field strength, the better the propagation.

Click to enlarge

In the analysis all spot over 400 km and more are in cluded.
Thanks Hajo, for the interesting experiment.