Back about 20 years ago K1MEM (SK) and I worked about 20 miles on 160 with
Heath Cantennas in the basement at both ends. Both rigs at 100W. With no
band noise the pee weak signals were perfect copy.
This started when I heard Jim testing while I was on the Beverage. I called
him on our local group 222 MHz simplex frequency and set up the test.
Carl
KM1H
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Zaimes AA1K" <jz73@verizon.net>
To: "topband" <topband@contesting.com>
Sent: Friday, September 20, 2013 8:34 PM
Subject: Topband: The best ears ...
A few days ago I finally got around to resurrecting my screwdriver antenna
that had met its demise many months back when a 7-year-old stainless steel
mounting bolt suffered metal fatigue.. I was 5 miles down the road before a
passing motorist brought it to my attention, and there was serious damage
from its horizontal journey on the roadway.
After finding some 1-inch aluminum rod locally and purchasing a
larger-than-previous Grade 8 steel bolt, I once again had the antenna
mounted on my 2009 VW Jetta. I finished this up after dark yesterday only
to discover that the motor no longer worked. Additionally, chafing from
when it was dragged on the road surface had effectively shorted out about
a quarter of the coil length, so it was nowhere near resonance on 160
meters. Nor was it resonant on any other band.
I was out of time so left it be and was at least satisfied I'd be able to
listen to HF again on my morning hour-long commute.
When I hit the road at 0830z today I was pleased to hear some early
activity. For a lark I did try calling the W1, W2 and W3 stations who were
CQing, but none took notice. With the IC-706 showing infinity for SWR and
the output power clamped down to just a few watts, I really wasn't
surprised.
About 30 minutes into my trip I heard VE1ZZ calling CQ. Again I dropped my
call a few times, and when I stopped there was a long pause before Jack
came back with a QRZ, then a busted call and finally getting it right and
we exchanged reports. I was truly amazed that anyone could hear me with
this poor antenna.
A few minutes later VY2ZM was CQ'ing, and when I called Jeff came right
back, with an even better report than Jack had given me. Again I was
amazed.
So my hat's off to these two veterans of Topband and their great ears who
could pull out such a puny signal!
73/Jon AA1K/m
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