Calling all hams

I don't do contests, but I find them to be a pretty great way of seeing how my aerials perform on RX.

I keep 3 countries lists. One for SWL, the second worked on CB, the last worked on ham bands.

I have a busy weekend, but I should be able to get a couple of hours listening in.

Fred said . . . . I don't do contests, but I find them to be a pretty great way of seeing how my aerials perform on RX.
I keep 3 countries lists. One for SWL, the second worked on CB, the last worked on ham bands.
I have a busy weekend, but I should be able to get a couple of hours listening in.

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There should be quite a bit of activity from Indonesia (zone 28) as they have approximately 500,000 licensed hams. Maybe your CB radio can make it to 28 mhz the 10 meter ham band.

My Anytone 6666 CB covers 10 happily with around 60 watts.

My Yeasu 818 portable covers all our bands, as does my Yaesu 891, the latter was opened to 11.

My cheap and nasty Chinese uSDX covers the lot, but that's as cheap as it is nasty so I don't really use it. It manages 6 watts on 40, but only 1 watt on 10.

My G0 allows all bands, but my YD is more limited- Effectively 10 and 40 because of aerial size and my limited interest in digital. modes.

I think the Anytone will end up left in the car as mobile HF for when I can't be bothered taking a better radio.

My next project is a telescopic 2 ele for 10, so that should give me a nice bit of metal for my radio to throw RF through

The cq world wide dx phone contest is this weekend. Exchange is power & zone. The Philippines is zone 27.
The Philippines is a rare multiplier so you will be in great demand. Call CQ Contest and sit back and listen to the world calling you. - @Enzyte Bob

Thanks for the reminder. For sure we will be making contacts this weekend; I wish our local club would be more active in reminding us of important HF contests but they really focus more on VHF/UHF and DMR. I just do it for the contacts and the fun and not the points. Local Filipino hams who enter these contests always seem to do quite well I believe for the reason you mentioned. My station here is VHF and I can do 40m-10m but tuning 10m on my 1/2 G5RV antenna at my Valencia station does not cover the full band and the G5RV is not very efficient, but, on 12, 15, 17, 20, 30 and 40 it does pretty well for a wire. Again, thanks for the notice. If I were in Siquijor this weekend we would do much better with the full size G5RV and location near the beach.

@danfinn

Correction. My stations here in Valencia and Siquijor are HF and VHF. DU7SJF.

My Anytone 6666 CB covers 10 happily with around 60 watts.My Yeasu 818 portable covers all our bands, as does my Yaesu 891, the latter was opened to 11.My cheap and nasty Chinese uSDX covers the lot, but that's as cheap as it is nasty so I don't really use it. It manages 6 watts on 40, but only 1 watt on 10.My G0 allows all bands, but my YD is more limited- Effectively 10 and 40 because of aerial size and my limited interest in digital. modes. - @Fred

I never really focused much on QRP here but I do notice I can log into our daily 40m PARA net using 10W and get signal reports about 2 S-units lower than my 100W reports. But that is local NVISC communications, not DX. I simply use all the power I can on HF for DX  because I need it for SSB to California/US West Coast stations on  40m and 20m. With CW, I have no problem with 10W to the US West Coast but with SSB for other frequencies I need 100 watts. In the US 100w is called "barefoot" lol, almost QRP. Actually I have an AL80B Ameritron linear from 1992 which I had to repair here myself (nobody here can repair them) but now an electrolytic gave up the ghost and I won't bother repairing anymore. 100W is perfect for Philippines DX. Having said that, if or when I ever get back on 10m with a decent modified CB vertical antenna,  I think 10W will do fine.

I have  a rather nice QRP case.

The radio is an 818

It has a switch mode PSU

I carry two tuners, one for EFHW, the other for balanced and unbalanced feeds.

Tucked into the lid I have a wire for 10 and another for 40. The cheap fishing pole look after verticals, but I attached a bag to another wire. I add a few stones to make an easy throw into the nearest tree.

For 10 meters:

For those interested in a cheap, fast construction, low swr & broadside gain of approximately 3.5 db, build a half square antenna.

It's essentially phased verticals fed at the top so no radials required.

Each vertical is 9 feet tall, can be constructed with wire taped to 10 feet tall bamboo poles.

The poles are spaced at 17 feet, connected to each other at the top by a wire, this wire is your phasing line.

Fed by 52 ohm coax at the top of one vertical, if you don't have coax then use lamp cord.

The gain is broadside, with a low takeoff angle, good for dx.

A handy calculator

Efhw Antenna Calculator - Calculator Academy https://share.google/Dcyis9iCPrCxCQnmf

A handy calculator Efhw Antenna Calculator - Calculator Academy https://share.google/Dcyis9iCPrCxCQnmf - @Fred

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Efhw is a terrible choice for an antenna.

If anyone would like to design an antenna, download Eznec. The author has retired and after selling 10's of thousands of copies, it's now free.

I'm very limited on space so I use an EFHW for 10. it's a vertical telescopic mounted on a tripod. It takes a minute to set up and gives very nice results, but only if I use a counterpoise wire. It's rubbish without it.

@Enzyte Bob

Sat. night the bands 40m and 20m are pretty active. It's good to hear people talking on HF again. I made a few contacts including a W7 from US on 40m at 11:30 PST. I kept it down because I would wake everybody if I kept it up lol. In the old days the HF bands would have been active with or without contests, especially at the peak of the solar cycle as we are today.

I'm very limited on space so I use an EFHW for 10. it's a vertical telescopic mounted on a tripod. It takes a minute to set up and gives very nice results, but only if I use a counterpoise wire. It's rubbish without it. - @Fred

In my limited space in Florida I used resonant balanced inverted vee dipole in my attic with a balun to 50 ohm coax. It worked very well and was quite compact.

In my limited space in Florida I used resonant balanced inverted vee dipole in my attic with a balun to 50 ohm coax. It worked very well and was quite compact.
- @danfinn

I have a loaded POTA style vertical for 40 that performs reasonably well, but I have a max of two poles, and one of them is low.

I'm looking at replacing the telescopic on the 40 portable with a fishing rod supported wire. That leaves me with the possibility of a right way up V for 10.

I have a couple of suitable baluns in the junk room. I also have a wire dipole for 40, but I have no hope of mounting that at this house.

I'm very limited on space so I use an EFHW for 10. it's a vertical telescopic mounted on a tripod. It takes a minute to set up and gives very nice results, but only if I use a counterpoise wire. It's rubbish without it. - @Fred

The EFHW is fed at the high impedance end of the dipole. Designers assume exact value of impedance at the feed point as 50 0hms (maybe closer to 73 ohms in reality). One problem is, although center fed antennas will vary the feedpoint impedance at 45-75 ohms or so, depending on conditions, the endpoint impedance is very difficult to calculate. EZNEC helps but the range might be 2000-5000 ohms. In making the antenna. they usually have you wind or they will provide a 49:1 balun but perhaps 60:1 would be better. It is hard to estimate. Sometimes they work OK in a given installation,  and sometimes not unless adjustments are made, depending on antenna height, nearby objects, wire diameter etc. etc.. But if you have one that works for you with counterpoise, which is seemingly necessaty anyway, great. It probably takes some adjustment of installation to optimize it.

It probably takes some adjustment of installation to optimize it.
- @danfinn

The first time, yes, but I noted the extension length so I can just throw it up now.

My nano VNA is a very handy tool that can make life easier.

It seems the EFHW is the new rage like all the sub performing antennas before them: Bazooka's, 43' verticals & G5RV.

I've always used resonant antennas with impedances easy to deal with and high efficiency.

I've had Yagi's, the the tighter the coupling which drives the impedance down the higher the gain. I never went below 25 ohms, which is easy to efficiently match with a Beta Match.

I've had a full size 3 el 40 meter yagi, using a Beta Match. When rebuilt using a 1:2 balun; there was a notable difference in performance. (negative)

One db can make a difference in making the contact, three db opens up a whole new layer of stations.

In one CQWW I worked139 countries with 1100 dx q's on 40 meters. On 40 meters I was able to work Europe at three in the afternoon, hours before sunset.

Mine is a matter of physical limits  but the vertical does quite a job on 10.

Work is rather wild at the moment, but I wod like to build a few aerial projects when the Christmas holiday come around.

Yes, resonant antennas are generally a better bet. Watch this space.

The cq world wide dx phone contest is this weekend. Exchange is power & zone. The Philippines is zone 27.
The Philippines is a rare multiplier so you will be in great demand. Call CQ Contest and sit back and listen to the world calling you. - @Enzyte Bob

DU1EV is 5/9 near Jakarta on 7.134

E2K - 7.167 - seriously hot signal

I hate to say this, but I'm using a seriously sub performing EFHW on 40.

It does well on RX, but TX is lacking

The cq world wide dx phone contest is this weekend. Exchange is power & zone. The Philippines is zone 27.The Philippines is a rare multiplier so you will be in great demand. Call CQ Contest and sit back and listen to the world calling you. - @Enzyte Bob DU1EV is 5/9 near Jakarta on 7.134 - @Fred

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That is not dx,  Do a Google search: Contest scores online.

At this time the top station has over 15,000 contacts, total of 758 countries through 160, 80, 40, 20, 15 &10.

That's an average of 126 countries per band.

On 40 meters the top contacts by one station 2893 contacts in 167 countries.

On 10 meters the top station has 4,000 contacts in 197 countries.

The cq world wide dx phone contest is this weekend. Exchange is power & zone. The Philippines is zone 27.The Philippines is a rare multiplier so you will be in great demand. Call CQ Contest and sit back and listen to the world calling you. - @Enzyte Bob DU1EV is 5/9 near Jakarta on 7.134 - @Fred
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That is not dx, Do a Google search: Contest scores online.
At this time the top station has over 15,000 contacts, total of 758 countries through 160, 80, 40, 20, 15 &10.

That's an average of 126 countries per band.

On 40 meters the top contacts by one station 2893 contacts in 167 countries.

On 10 meters the top station has 4,000 contacts in 197 countries. - @Enzyte Bob

10 seems to be as dead as a dodo - or way when I posted that.

However, I turned the radios off in favour of work related bits and bobs.

10 seems to be as dead as a dodo - or way when I posted that.
However, I turned the radios off in favour of work related bits and bobs. - @Fred

With a sunspot number of about 114 and a solar flux index of about 160, 10 meters should be doing very well. But, between now and the peak of the cycle last year I have observed very bad SSB and CW dx conditions on all of the bands throughout this current cycle 25. The physics of skywave propagation has not been the problem, it has been hams not transmitting on HF so much anymore. The one exception is FT8 which seems to be alive and well and racking up awards continuously. To me that is disappointing because FT8 is not really "ham radio" to me; it does not involve real ragchew type communication like ssb, am fm voice and the other digital modes, just a strictly formatted computer to computer exchange. Once in a while I play with it and I have acquired some pretty rare countries at rather low power but I miss the days of daily SSB and CW which in earlier times would have been very active under current solar conditions. I am not a contester for points but I appreciate the organic voice and cw contacts they provide.  FT8 is interesting for measuring station and antenna efficiency but I never stay with it long due to the lack of human communication.

I see FT as a legitimate mode, just not one for me.

It does have possibilities in emergency situations,  and for spooks. Imagine trying to find a clandestine FT8 signal on a frequency between 0.5 and 30.

I can see how FT8's ability to be read even when under the noise level could be interesting,  but I'm an old fashioned rag chewing type, so I will skip it.

I'm not active, FT8 came during this time.

I'm a cw operator. The Genie (FT8) is out of the bottle forever.

Many people are achieving amazing country totals on 6 meters with FT8. But they have invested time developing their stations and antennas.

My opinion of FT8 is the same for those guys who wear their shack on their belt.

Ihave a small, and rather good, 2/70 hand held, and it is commonly on my belt. It tends to be used for talk ins, check ins, and rag chewing with local chaps - commonly on a repeater.

It is radio, but hardly experimental. I also use Echolink and Zello for chats with hams back in the old country. Not radio, but they can be handy.

FT8 just isn't for me.

I was out of the hobby for many years so my morse is very rusty, but that mode is high on my list. I did the 12 WPM test in the UK with ease, so it shouldn't be a big jeb to get going again when I have some time.

I see FT as a legitimate mode, just not one for me.
It does have possibilities in emergency situations, and for spooks. Imagine trying to find a clandestine FT8 signal on a frequency between 0.5 and 30.
I can see how FT8's ability to be read even when under the noise level could be interesting, but I'm an old fashioned rag chewing type, so I will skip it. - @Fred

I have thought for a long time that "JS8" based on FT8, but with capability to add text Infornation, would be an excellent medium for health and welfare messaging at catastrophic sites. Your QRP 10 watt 811 at the site would be an excellent means to provide information to Emergency operation centers utilizing the awesome power of HF. I have not seen this yet but some of us believe the mode has excellent Emergency Ops capabilities. If hasn't happened yet. Possibly the commercial people will eventually adopt the mode in lieu of hams, helping people.

I'm not active, FT8 came during this time.
I'm a cw operator. The Genie (FT8) is out of the bottle forever.

Many people are achieving amazing country totals on 6 meters with FT8. But they have invested time developing their stations and antennas.

My opinion of FT8 is the same for those guys who wear their shack on their belt. - @Enzyte Bob

FT8 as used today is running ham radio as we used to know it because it draws hams away from cw and ssb. I accept it and sometimes get on ft8 myself for the fun of it but I also recognize it has killed ham radio as we knew it.

Great post! If you're looking for fellow ham radio enthusiasts in the Philippines, I’m around and would love to connect. I’ve been focusing more on HF bands lately and’d be keen to swap tips on antennas, contest strategies and what’s working locally. Count on me to listen in and reach out, hope to hear your call soon! - @shahzadmalik6982

Hope to hear you on the bands  OM and also on the PARA daily net on 7095 KHz de DU7SJF Dan in Dumaguete.