[UK-CONTEST] FT-1000MP improvements

[Chris Tran ZL1CT]

Sunday 22nd August 2004

Hello all

Has anyone installed the new INRAD 'Roofing filter' board in their 1000MP -
specifically I'm interested in whether this new board provides the few dB
extra gain of the original 70MHz preamp board ?  My 1000MP is deaf on 21MHz
and at this point in the sunspot cycle, here in New Zealand, big pile-ups of
strong signals are not too common, so I may not need this new Roofing filter
mod. I've avoided installing the 70MHz preamp board so far because of its
(measured) degradation of the strong-signal handling characteristics of the
MP.

On a separate topic, I've had experience recently (WPX, IARU, IOTA) of
calling UK stations on 80m from the ZL6QH contest station, and one thing
that was really noticeable was how difficult most of them were to work - on
CW it was easier, but on SSB many stations who were S9 or more here, at
sunrise or sunset, were impossible to work. I guess this is a mixture of Eu
QRM, QRN, lack of RX antennas, and operator inexperience ? The ZL6QH
antennas work fairly well on 80m, and we were running plenty of RF output.
Most annoying is a DVK calling 'CQ' with too short a repeat delay - in the
IARU contest ALL of the IU*HQ Italian HQ stations had this problem, and I
could not work any of them on any band !

73
Chris
ZL1CT (GM3WOJ)