30 Apr 2013

QRP from the Garden

Today I decided to setup my Chameleon V1 antenna in the garden in London City and work some CW QRP 10w.












Conditions are reasonably okay on the Bands but the noise in the city here is a tough battle to fight at the best of times on the bands.
I had my first CW contact on 5MHz (60m) QRP today with GW3UEP - Ron on 5.260MHz at 16:22UTC the QSB was deep at that time, both reports of 559 raised an eyebrow for me with regards to the 60m propagation. Thanks to Ron for my first QSO on a new band for me and also for his patience with the QSB during our QSO.
I'm looking forward to exploring more conditions on the 60 meters band as it has very interesting propagation characteristics, just lying approximately halfway between 80 meter (3.5 MHz) and 40 meter (7 MHz), the 60 meter (5 MHz) band forms a communication bridge when propagation effects make use of the 80m or 40m impossible for local-to-medium distance communications. The 5Mhz band is apparently less affected by D-Layer absorption than on the 80 meter band, the 60 meter (5 MHz) band is an ideal candidate for the Near Vertical Incidence Skywave (NVIS), the most commonly used technique capable of providing seamless local-to-medium distance HF communications.
Here is a simple QRP setup that I'm running at the moment in West London.




I'm going to test a Loop antenna and a Dipole if I get the time over the next few days so I hope to work some of you on the key on 60 Meters 5MHz band.
Best 73's
Pat
M0XII/QRP
- Posted from my iPhone - 73's DE EI5IX

23 Apr 2013

March 144/432 MHz 2013 - Results

Results from the RSGB Contest results website;

M0MDG/P - The Middlesex DX Group done well this year, the group managed to strike up a 3rd Place position overall within the Section Open of this radio contest with a total of 1419 points.
The group came in 2nd place on the 144Mhz Open Section and 3rd on 432Mhz Open Section of the contest.

This year the MDG group were rewarded with excellent conditions on both bands VHF and UHF from Locator: JO00EW, Possibly the best conditions at that location were on the Saturday and not as great on the Sunday but I'm really pleased and had a fantastic weekend of radio. Looking forward to more great conditions and fantastic contests like this on VHF and UHF bands over this summer, might even get to hear some of you on the air.

I'd like to take this opportunity to Thank John G0KLX, Jason M1PRO, Carl 2E1IDC, Simon 2W0VAG and Steve G1OFW for a really enjoyable weekend I'm already looking forward to the next one.


73's 

Pat EI5IX / M0XII