Wow...I'm stoked.....

[WX2MIG]

Got up, grabbed a cup of coffee and hit the HAM shack at 7:30 this morning.
Fired up the 40m band and heard all kinds of QSO's going on. Most were obviously between HAM's that know each other well, and regularly meet on the same frequency every day. It's kinda hard breaking into a round table discussion like that as a new guy on the band. Spun the dial some more and came across the R.V. Service Net on 7.230.0 Mhz, the net control operator Bill (KI4OCN) welcomed me in as check-in #16. Bill is in North Carolina and gave me a 5 X 9 signal report. Then another station broke in (VE3BXB) in up state New York who also gave me a 5 X 9 report. That in itself put a big shit eating grin on my face.

Then I went outside, lowered the 10m home brew dipole I had up, and replaced it with a home brew 20m dipole. I should add that this particular antenna is no where near high enough to be fully effective, and with the wind blowing, one of the legs does come in momentary contact with a tree branch.
Again I start spinning the dial on the 20m band, hear a bunch of QSO's in progress, then on 14.209.0 I hear a station with a funny sounding call sign calling out "CQ DX North America"....I return his call, and he comes back to me. The station was S52QM, Tom in Western Slovainia who gave me a 5 X 9 signal report.......

I haven't had this HF radio for 24 hours yet, put up two home brew dipole antennas that aren't at optimum height, and got 5 X 9 reports on the first 3 HF contacts I made, and one of those from across the Atlantic Ocean in Europe......

I'm Stoked.......

 

[SR385]

Biggest tip with a rag chew, listen for a while and when you have something to add to the conversation, toss your call in between transmissions. If they don't mind interruptions, they'll call you back. Then jump in with your comment or question.

The worst reactions will be if you interrupt a conversation and ask for a signal report. I generally don't care, but after a long day on the band it gets annoying and some people will bite your head off for it.

Think of 40m/80m/160m as a bar. You start going to a bar and do you walk around talking to anyone in reach? Generally you kick back and conversations come along on their own. The longer you sit in that stool, the more people you begin to meet. After a few months/years you are a regular and know what to say to people on sight.

Oh and congrats, HF is what it's all about.

 

[EDUK8TR]

I'm glad you're having a good time on HF, Tony. Once you start making those DX contacts it really gets fun. I always like it when I get the foreign QSL cards in the mail direct or in a packet from the bureau.

73.

Wayne C.

 

[mackmobile43]

no 40 here but there is plenty0 20.

 

[Moleculo]

Now you got the HF bug. It's so much fun just stringing some wire up and getting on the air.

Do you have an antenna tuner? If so, you might want to consider replacing that coax with ladder line and just using your 40m dipole on all the bands below it. The losses will be negligable and then you don't have to worry about changing antennas.

 

[WX2MIG]

Just came back in from the shack, made a few more contacts on 20m.....California, Washington State, Texas, but the funniest one was a net with a control operator from New Orleans. This guy had that deep southern draw, and was a little hard to understand, but he was a funny old cuss.....

there's still some noise on 40m, but that band started to fade about mid morning, and by lunch time there wasn't much going on, so back to 20m I went.
I either need an antenna tuner and just use the one wire, or I'm going to need an antenna switch, every time I change bands I have to change coax connections on the back of this rig......

I spun the dial on all the other bands, but they all sound quite dead, 20 seems to be the hot spot, I'm sure all that'll change as we get deeper into cycle 24, I just hope I still have this 40m wire up....the wife isn't too happy about that pole sticking out of the roof, and wire stretched from one end of the property to the other. But I keep pointing out to her that she pulled in and out of the driveway 3 times before she noticed it, so obviously it's not that detracting to the house......

Biggest tip with a rag chew, listen for a while and when you have something to add to the conversation, toss your call in between transmissions. If they don't mind interruptions, they'll call you back. Then jump in with your comment or question.

SR385.....
I wanted to do that with one of these groups since they were talking about shark fishing, and commercial fishing, two things I have participated in during my lifetime, but if these guys were working a 2m repeater they would have timed it out, no break between stations, as soon as one guy stopped talking one of the other guys were already keyed up, so I just listened in for a while, them spun the dial....it's all good.....

 

[Lazybones1222]

Now you got the HF bug. It's so much fun just stringing some wire up and getting on the air.

Do you have an antenna tuner? If so, you might want to consider replacing that coax with ladder line and just using your 40m dipole on all the bands below it. The losses will be negligable and then you don't have to worry about changing antennas.

I agree 100% with moleculo. I put up a 40 meter dipole and use 600 ohm ladder line and a big tuner - and presto - I am on more bands than I know what to do with.

 

[M3JZT]

I usually use 20m as this antenna will not tune on 40m...I heard many State Side stations this after noon but low on signals...I will listen out for your call and if heard I will call you back...just wish I had room for a decent beam antenna for that band,...:headbang

 

[Highlander_821]

Check these guys out when you get time...

72 Ragchew Group 7.272 Mhz net - Rag Chew Net - The 72 Chew - HF HAM Amatuer Radio Net and Round Table Group 7.272Mhz

and

68Group.Net


Anyone is welcome. Nice groups.

 

[ajm1571]

I have a longiwre up fed with ladder line and use a tuner an can go from 80-10m. feed point is appox. 45ft up and it runs east/west. I also have a 20m vert dipole that also works pretty good. if you have the room, the longiwre is 120ft, 60ft both sides and as long as you have a tuner, you should be able to do 10-80m no probs. Just do the formula for an 80m antenna and it's a little bigger than 120ft, i cant remember right off the top of my head what it is lol

 

[WX2MIG]

Now you got the HF bug. It's so much fun just stringing some wire up and getting on the air.

Do you have an antenna tuner? If so, you might want to consider replacing that coax with ladder line and just using your 40m dipole on all the bands below it. The losses will be negligable and then you don't have to worry about changing antennas.

Mole...just won a Kenwood AT-130 antenna tuner on eBay, it's the matching unit to this TS-130S. I don't believe it has the capacity for a balanced line feed since the description stated that it has 4 SO-239 connectors for 4 different antenna feeds....

Are you telling me that with a coax feed I won't be able to tune a 40m dipole to work on 20m...or any other band......????
That would suck.....

 

[ajm1571]

you should be able to tune 20m on a 40m antenna that is coax fed. Don't quote me on that, but it should work.

 

[Beetle]

you should be able to tune 20m on a 40m antenna that is coax fed. Don't quote me on that, but it should work.

Define "work".

You might make the transmitter think it's looking into a good match, but the SWR downstream from the tuner is going to be in the many hundreds, if not thousands, of ohms, and you'll still have a ton of loss in the coax. If the length of the coax isn't too great, this might be acceptable to you. 20:1 is not out of the ballpark for a 40 meter antenna on 20 meters. Figuring a 50 foot length of RG-213, the loss is "only" about 2.6 dB @14 MHz, which is still almost half your power.

Don't forget that you'll have the same losses on receive.

 

[Lazybones1222]

Define "work".

You might make the transmitter think it's looking into a good match, but the SWR downstream from the tuner is going to be in the many hundreds, if not thousands, of ohms, and you'll still have a ton of loss in the coax. If the length of the coax isn't too great, this might be acceptable to you. 20:1 is not out of the ballpark for a 40 meter antenna on 20 meters. Figuring a 50 foot length of RG-213, the loss is "only" about 2.6 dB @14 MHz, which is still almost half your power.

Don't forget that you'll have the same losses on receive.

Will not the using REAL ladder line be minimal compared to coax?

 

[Beetle]

Will not the using REAL ladder line be minimal compared to coax?

Sure it will, and that's the point. Coax is great feedline IF the feedpoint impedance matches (or approximates) the characteristic impedance of the coax. Typical dipole in free space = 70-75 ohms. Same dipole at realistic height = 50-60 ohms.

Both of these figures are at the frequency at which the dipole is 1/2 wavelength, which we've established as 7 MHz. At 2x that frequency, the feedpoint impedance is going to be very high. Same at 4x, 6x, and other even multiples. At ODD multiples, say 3x (21 MHz; 15 meters), the feedpoint impedance will again be low, and 40 meter, coax-fed dipoles are widely used on 15 meters with good results.

It's interesting to note that even at even multiples of the frequency, with SWR around 20:1, a dipole is still resonant. An antenna analyzer at the feedpoint will confirm that.

A "resonant" antenna doesn't necessarily have a low SWR.