Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2020
I was upstairs in Studio C boxing up some items that recently sold on eBay while monitoring one of my “regular” spots on 75-meter phone when everything went to hell in the proverbial handbasket.
While listening, signals began dropping significantly; and what’s more unusual is that they never rebounded. Stations I normally copy Q5 were down in the noise. If the guys I was listening to hadn’t complained about the band going out on them, I would have sworn my antenna was on the ground.
By 9 p.m., the phone band above 3900 was nearly vacant of copyable signals (at least at my QTH). CW always gets thru, right? At about 9 p.m. local time, I began tuning down to the Georgia traffic net CW frequency with my Heathkit SB-102. At a little after 9 p.m., I hadn’t heard the NCS yet, so I tuned around a little and found the NCS way, way down in the noise.
The QSB was so bad that at times I could barely hear the NCS in the noise. I could hear a dit or a dah, but not enough characters to determine where in the net preamble the NCS was. Jerry (the NCS) is always copyable, even when the band is broken. What gives?
I heard the NCS calling QNI, but heard no one responding. I figured other stations were responding, maybe I couldn’t hear them. No, the NCS called QNI again. WTF?? He dropped down in the noise again, but came up long enough for me to copy “QNI K.” Figuring the QSB was on its way up in strength, I dropped my Zed and he replied. I checked in quickly and turned it back to him. He called for additional stations, but again, no takers. For the first time since I’ve been checking in to this net. I was the only station who could copy the NCS well enough to check in!
The NCS is near the Atlantic Coast of Georgia, and I never figured out what was going on with 80 meters, though I strongly suspect it was going way, way long.
I’m listening to a Web-based SDR receiver in Georgia, and I’m hearing stations in Kansas that are Q5 and louder than closer signals, so the band must be way longer than normal.
SX-117 TRIAL. After moving the Ranger RCI-2990 I moved one of my Hallicrafters SX-117s into position where I usually package eBay goodies leaving here.
The rig warmed up nicely, but while listening, it sounded like LSB went mostly deaf, particularly compared to USB. WTF??? Not sure, but I did cycle the switches to make sure there wasn’ t a dirty switch or contact. I still need to clean the switches and pots, but we’ll have to see what else is going on. I did notice that the wider bandwidth — 5 kcs — was less sensitive than 2.5 kcs. I’ll have to check it out some more.
NEXT ON THE BENCH. I have a Hammarlund HQ-170 receiver that I bought more than a dozen years ago but found that it did not work. I haven’t touched it since trying it. It could be something as simple as a speaker issue. I’m planning to tackle it soon, would love to get that baby working!
73 es CUL … .de KY4Z SK … SK …. (dit dit) ….