Here's my off the wall experience today.
On 20m there's a fellow in Puerto Rico running a QSO party that consists of making contact, stating your name, location, and the current temperature at your location. Fun, I thought, so I try to bust the pileup with my Icom on my inverted L wire antenna. Oddly, it was tunable to a 1.5 SWR, but the radio was not transmitting but about 40% output. I couldn't be heard.
Maybe the ice on the wire... I don't know and too cold to go see.
I switch out the antenna to my 11m attic loop. Immediately my receive goes up, and the MFJ-939 brings the SWR in line to around 1.2:1. Nevertheless, the contact eludes me. So now I am trying anything. I go to my Imax2k outside at 49' to the feedline. The tuner brings the SWR down, but receive is a bit noisy, especially compared to the loop, and, again, no contact. The pileup, is keeping me covered up.
Now, what....
I have one last option. There is a 6m extended double zepp in the attic. I switch to it, hit the tuner button, and the Puerto Rican station leaps into my receive. I key up and drop my call sign once again. Angel, WP3R, in Puerto Rico returns my call and we share a moment of weather information. Weird.
It was 84°F there, and 17°F in NW Arkansas.
K5HBB
On 20m there's a fellow in Puerto Rico running a QSO party that consists of making contact, stating your name, location, and the current temperature at your location. Fun, I thought, so I try to bust the pileup with my Icom on my inverted L wire antenna. Oddly, it was tunable to a 1.5 SWR, but the radio was not transmitting but about 40% output. I couldn't be heard.
Maybe the ice on the wire... I don't know and too cold to go see.
I switch out the antenna to my 11m attic loop. Immediately my receive goes up, and the MFJ-939 brings the SWR in line to around 1.2:1. Nevertheless, the contact eludes me. So now I am trying anything. I go to my Imax2k outside at 49' to the feedline. The tuner brings the SWR down, but receive is a bit noisy, especially compared to the loop, and, again, no contact. The pileup, is keeping me covered up.
Now, what....
I have one last option. There is a 6m extended double zepp in the attic. I switch to it, hit the tuner button, and the Puerto Rican station leaps into my receive. I key up and drop my call sign once again. Angel, WP3R, in Puerto Rico returns my call and we share a moment of weather information. Weird.
It was 84°F there, and 17°F in NW Arkansas.
K5HBB
Last edited:
