Topband: VP8STI last night - Report from Maryland

[Herbert Schoenbohm]

Last night I heard so many times that VP8STI repeatedly returned to NA
callers  and sent the report with no reply. Its with the QSB peaks and
valleys alone with QRN this is going to be a common problem for those
hoping for a TB ATNO.  STI is hearing callers with simple Inverted "L"
and dipoles but the limited RX ability of many callers is unfortunate.
My suggestion for them is to go to Home Deport or Lowes and buy some
THHN wire to run a bog SE or SSE  just for this operation. Even some CAT
5 Cable using two of the twisted pairs alone with the others floating
will work.  Even those with small yards can beg the neighbors to run it
over their picket fence or on the snow this afternoon and terminate it
with a a 250 ohm resistor to a small 3 or 4 foot  ground rod...even a
steel pipe is better than nothing.   On the feed end if you don't have a
ferrite core to make the right feed transformer you might even try a
direct feed with your coax run back to you Receiver.  It may not be
pretty but could make the difference between a contact or none. As long
as you get some noise on RX you will be amazed how the signal from
VP8STI jumps out of it at times.  The idea is you don't want to have
other noise pick up from other directions and sources competing with
it.  To make my point, I listened to VP8STI for hours at 579 and even
peaking at time higher, but when I switched to my TX vertical antenna
they were unreadable.

If you have time try a BOG and it doesn't have to pretty to work.


Herb Schoenbohm, KV4FZ

On 1/22/2016 7:10 PM, Bill Hider wrote:
>  From Maryland, FM 19:
>
> Armchair copy last nite from 2350Z until 0215Z this morning.  Some fading.
> With my headphones laying on the bench, they were Q5 solid copy while
> I was working on other projects waiting for them to call for "NA" instead of
> "EU".
> Never happened.
>
> I stayed & listened until 0215Z when they faded out here.
>
> I'm using a Hi-Z 4-sq.  Azimuth heading to VP8S is 155 Deg.  4-SQ heading
> used was 134 Deg.
>
> Bill N3RR
>