I'm listening to the 11-meter band right now to a group of CB'ers talking about ham radio. The one guy whose closest to me is telling his friends what a great antenna his Moonraker is on 75 meters.
The guy thinks that the hams are missing the boat by not using 11-meter antennas on 75 meters. He was telling his friends with amazement how well he can hear some of the 75-meter roundtables each evening.
“These local guys on 3960 will be httin' me with 20 and 30 over signals,” he told his friends. “I couldn't hear them that well if that antenna wasn't workin' right.”
Of course, he's overlooking two important factors — 75-meter propagation and the fact the roundtable guys are running legal-limit amplifiers on SSB. They would be that loud if he was using 9 feet of wire stuck out his window.
And this CB'er is using some model Icom radio. He was telling his friends about the automatic antenna tuner it has. He's quite a fan of ham bands, and is just amazed at how knowledgeable hams are.
“You guys oughta listen in to 3878,” he said. “It's just like CB, except they know a lot of stuff.” What a hoot!
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I was tuning across the 11-meter band this morning to see if there were any indications that 10 might be opening soon. The ARRL 10-Meter contest began last night and runs through midnight UTC tomorrow.
So far the band is D-E-A-D. No beacons, no nothing. I even double-checked my antenna switch to make sure I hadn't left it switched to my Heathkit HW-16 from last night. I've got my logging program ready to go on the laptop, and I've got my Heil headset ready to rock. C'mon propagation!
I had planned to work some CW on 80 last night, but time kinda snuck up on me. The band was long, and there were a couple of Canucks parked about 3715 just chatting away, 20 over S9, just booming in. I started to call CQ, but it was nearly 2 am, and I was getting sleepy from getting up early yesterday. Maybe tonight, eh?
I've shifted the keys around on my desk, and I've been playing with my homebrew bug that a W1 made back in the 1930s. It's a neat key.
The woodstove is romping, the house is warming up. I'm ready to rock in the contest if the band ever opens.
CUL es 73 … de KY4Z SK … dit …. dit