The difference between 10W and 18W isn't sufficient to prevent you making contacts. Sounds a lot but in reality its at best 1 S point on a generous signal meter.
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Requirements for DX
- Thread starter ND88
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The difference between 10W and 18W isn't sufficient to prevent you making contacts. Sounds a lot but in reality its at best 1 S point on a generous signal meter.
Those PEP meters aren't really proper meters for reading SSB. They'll give you a better average but like all passive measuring circuitry it simply can't respond quick enough which is why you want a powered peak hold meter or to use a steady tone. A peak hold meter uses a circuit with a couple of op-amps in to provide sufficient drive for the short peaks to charge a capacitor sufficiently enough to hold the meter reading high when the power peak drops. By selecting different values of resistor to reduce the speed the capacitor discharges you can control how long it maintains the peak reading on the meter.
The non-powered PEP meters have the capacitor resistor network but it doesn't get sufficient charge to show the full peak values on normal speech.
The requirements for SSB ain't much. Have QSL card's from every continent in the world running only a few kw's pep in my mobile and house.
The real challenge is someone with only a few hundred watts making it on CB am DX channels (6,11,20,26,28). Guess it can be done? A little luck and at least a 4 pill with a whole lot of mother nature. But it's the stations running a good starter box or bigger with at least 4 elements are getting back to me on most DX channel.
If you can't or wouldn't run a little power, go down to 26.915 am. Good folks running lower power.
The real challenge is someone with only a few hundred watts making it on CB am DX channels (6,11,20,26,28). Guess it can be done? A little luck and at least a 4 pill with a whole lot of mother nature. But it's the stations running a good starter box or bigger with at least 4 elements are getting back to me on most DX channel.
If you can't or wouldn't run a little power, go down to 26.915 am. Good folks running lower power.
But its the Ham and SSB people who are making the good quality contacts and not having to fight the children with the noise toys, roger beeps, echo boxes and over driven crap. I have nothing against AM as it can be fun and a good quality AM signal is a thing of beauty but very rare on 11 meters. You want to hear how AM "should" sound get a sw receiver and listen to an AM net on 75 meters.
I don't understand why i'm having so much trouble making contacts on sideband then, if it's so easy. Anyone else running a similar setup to my own? Barefoot stock radio and a wilson whip? What kind of success are you having?
And it's not that I don't want to run an amp, it's just that I haven't bought one yet. I will most likely be buying a TNT amp at some point once I gain some more experience. One of my main interests in the hobby is making DX contacts on lower amounts of power. Think the 100 or 250 watt models would lend me some success shooting skip at least half of the time?
Aren't there goons on nearly every radio band? All of that crap you mentioned gets old fast, which is why I tend to keep my radio on LSB the majority of the time. But I do enjoy my fair share of 11,17, and 28 until someone comes along and spoils it. I like to listen to Motormouth maul nearly everyday.
I laud the day I get my ham license and can try other radio bands. Got a Yaesu 1900R ready to install as well!
And it's not that I don't want to run an amp, it's just that I haven't bought one yet. I will most likely be buying a TNT amp at some point once I gain some more experience. One of my main interests in the hobby is making DX contacts on lower amounts of power. Think the 100 or 250 watt models would lend me some success shooting skip at least half of the time?
Aren't there goons on nearly every radio band? All of that crap you mentioned gets old fast, which is why I tend to keep my radio on LSB the majority of the time. But I do enjoy my fair share of 11,17, and 28 until someone comes along and spoils it. I like to listen to Motormouth maul nearly everyday.
I laud the day I get my ham license and can try other radio bands. Got a Yaesu 1900R ready to install as well!
This isn't about that. Us 40 channel am cbers have a whole different area to compete in. I don't have anything against ham or ssb. Just don't preach to us about making half watt contacts all over the world.
But we do. I have what we call "the wall of Europe" on my doorstep, thousands and thousands of amateurs running 1.5kW into big beams on big towers. Yet I managed to get confirmed contacts in over 100 countries in a couple of years with just 100W and home built wire dipole antennas and 91 countries in a weekend with a small home-made Moxon beam. I've made contacts with 100W whilst out mobile and when I was a foundation license holder limited to just 10W I made plenty of DX contacts then as well and at that time I was using an Imax 2000 and a dipole made from speaker wire.
As a freebander before becoming a ham I used to make plenty of DX contacts with a Superstar 3900 running 12W into an Imax 2000.
We don't understand it because what you're saying doesn't match our experience.
You ask what experience we have with a small rig and something like a Wilson whip. I've done over 1000 miles on FM with a 4W CB and a Sirio 3000 several years ago when we were at a solar minimum. Actually thought I was getting a rig check from a local at the time until they said where they were.
I think sorting your antenna SYSTEM would be better to start with and then up the power. I put system in bold for a reason - the bit on the other end of the coax you plug into your rig works as a complete system, not just the bit that sticks up into the sky. Knowing how it works and optimising it for the best performance possible will outweigh just adding more power to a poor antenna system. Go to www.k0bg.com and read it all. If you don't want to read it all pay particular attention to the Antenna Efficiency, Grounds, Antenna Mounts and Bonding sections. The last one can have a very big effect on your antenna system efficiency. If you install it right you should find you have to shorten your antenna as the resonant point should lower. From starting bonding to finishing mine dropped by 300kHz, equivalent of lowering the resonant point by 30 channels!! Thats a massive jump in efficiency and has lead to many contacts not believing I'm mobile.
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like said here already and very true. past few months all my cb radio talking on am and upper lsb channels were on a very old president grant 3 button mobile radio on am and upper ssb channels..then i just got a base not long ago.
the old moble radio did not do but 12 watts swing on lsb and i talked from fl to germany and even got italy 1 times when conditions were right
so everyone is telling the truth about it..
but your antena has to ge right..im running a 45 yr old base antenna so it must still work and def helped with the contacts.
id be checking into the antenna ground and such before going further like said above.
if you go with a tnt amp make sure and have the radio your gonna run with it..some are low drive amps and some are high drive amps like the "tnt hd 600" hd meaning "high drive"
i wouldnt bother with a 100-200 watt amp myself but will def make a difference,unless it was free or real cheap..
if i was gonna spend a few hundred bucks another words i would go ahead and get a tnt hd600 and be done with it..they really rock and roll.
that being said i dont no if i will ever use a amp again as of now,as im totally happy with my 100-150 watt pep 2995dx radio.
3000 mile contacts are very easy and 6-7,000 miles is not that bad when conditions permit
i may not have a "bird"meter but i really like my diawa cn-801 2k watt,wall wart powered pep meter.
and its very accurate with every meter its been up against<More audio>
the old moble radio did not do but 12 watts swing on lsb and i talked from fl to germany and even got italy 1 times when conditions were right
so everyone is telling the truth about it..
but your antena has to ge right..im running a 45 yr old base antenna so it must still work and def helped with the contacts.
id be checking into the antenna ground and such before going further like said above.
if you go with a tnt amp make sure and have the radio your gonna run with it..some are low drive amps and some are high drive amps like the "tnt hd 600" hd meaning "high drive"
i wouldnt bother with a 100-200 watt amp myself but will def make a difference,unless it was free or real cheap..
if i was gonna spend a few hundred bucks another words i would go ahead and get a tnt hd600 and be done with it..they really rock and roll.
that being said i dont no if i will ever use a amp again as of now,as im totally happy with my 100-150 watt pep 2995dx radio.
3000 mile contacts are very easy and 6-7,000 miles is not that bad when conditions permit
i may not have a "bird"meter but i really like my diawa cn-801 2k watt,wall wart powered pep meter.
and its very accurate with every meter its been up against<More audio>
Antenna system, it's the heart of your system and really needs to be paid much attention to. Like posted, spend some money on a good antenna system and then get an amp, the TNT 350HD is a decent amp, that added to a good radio and antenna system, you should have no problem with dx'ing when the conditions permit.
I will agree if you are an AM'er and insist on sticking to that mode then yes you're up aganist the wall on some channels unless you have watts and elements.
Sounds like your goal is to work DX in the car with a barefoot radio and magnet mount antenna. That's not going to be easy but it is possible on quieter frequencies. If your only option is in the car, the antenna or power level will have to change to provide you with better results. Years ago I had several places I could park and plug into antennas I already had mounted at these locations ready to use. Two were dipoles strung between trees and one was a 9 foot whip with a vise grip mount on top of a water tower.
The two dipoles talked the best DX while the whip on the water tank could produce an S-9 signal 50 miles out running less power than one would think. The point is, the dipole is your friend for DX. Costs just about nothing and will run circles around every other antenna you can buy short of a beam.
The two dipoles talked the best DX while the whip on the water tank could produce an S-9 signal 50 miles out running less power than one would think. The point is, the dipole is your friend for DX. Costs just about nothing and will run circles around every other antenna you can buy short of a beam.
I'll take that challenge. A lot of operators spend the time to correctly run am. Never pinch and run around 160% pos.
And a good fight is fun...God 80 am can get boring, with a few exceptions.