Anyone run 80m mobile?

[Captain Kilowatt]

I was wondering if any of you run 80m mobile or even 160m. I have heard a few on 80 and even a couple on 160m while mobile but it is hard to get a good signal on those bands due to antenna efficiency.I have run 80m a few times with nothing more than a Lakeview Hamstick tuned to 3790 that gives me +/- 20 KHz.It is hard but the contacts make for some good fun.I have worked from here in Nova Scotia into Ohio,Michigan,Virginia,North Carolina,Florida and England all in one night.It was funny as we dubbed 3782 the new 80m DX freq as five out of six of us on freq had "DX" as the last two letters of our calls. 8) Just the guys from Michigan and England were without the DX in the suffix.I have made a few other contacts in the easter half of the continent and a couple more to western Europe and plan to swap out the 20m stick for the 80m stick a bit more often this winter.I know the Hamstick is not much better than a dummy load on a stick but I can not afford a big screwdriver antenna and I am not sure I would want to mount one on the vehicle anyway. I am POSITIVE the XYL would not want one,but then again she has her vehicle and I have mine.

 

[Beetle]

QRN - I used to use a Hustler on 80/75 mobile with some pretty good results. Of course, that was on a car with no plastic in the body at all, and THAT tells you how long ago it was!

 

[N8YX]

QRN - I used to use a Hustler on 80/75 mobile with some pretty good results.

I have one of those - an MO-4 mast w/ resonators - on my truck, a full-size Ford Bronco.

Works well...

There are a number of mobile rigs at my disposal but the two I use most often are the Swan/Cubic Astro 150A and Cubic's Astro D.

The former covers 80-10M with a bit of non-amateur coverage at each band edge; a rotary selector is used for bandswitching. The latter was built for diplomatic and military uses; it covers 1.6-30MHz in all modes. No bandswitching required, which is just the ticket for mobile operation - one less thing to fool with while driving in heavy traffic. The bandpass filter scheme is very much like that used in a TS440S - done with relays which are driven by the rig's main CPU.

Both of the rigs have been used on every amateur band they'll cover with the exception of the WARC bands - just bought 17 and 12M resonators but haven't gotten the chance to try them yet. The Hustler arrangement always gets good reports. When run on 75M the whole outfit works fairly well considering the length of the antenna and the fact that I'm running 100w max.

Cubic made a couple of ATUs for the various series; I've used the ST3/ST3B and the ST8 in the truck at times. Just picked up an ST4 (autotuner) prototype which mates with the Astro D; the tuner is computer controlled...and I have to build an interface cable before I can use it...but configuring the setup in this way should make 75M a bit easier to operate. No longer will I have to fiddle with the tuner If I QSY when driving.

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

QRN - I used to use a Hustler on 80/75 mobile with some pretty good results. Of course, that was on a car with no plastic in the body at all, and THAT tells you how long ago it was!

You must have had a pretty good alternator to produce enough power to run that spark rig.

 

[park]

I use to run 75m mobile 5 to 10 years ago, talk to others in Texas. Used the hustler resonator that worked OK, but also used a Antron wip that worked pretty darn good with a TS-440 100 watts. Was hard to get a date with those ugly antennas though.....

 

[N8YX]

Was hard to get a date with those ugly antennas though.....

You're going about it all wrong.

Get the girl FIRST...then get her involved in the hobby...buy a rig for her...etc.

Did exactly that.

The only problem I've encountered thus far is for every gear purchase I make, it has to be X2 because my XYL has been known to "...co-opt..." various radio stuff - that is, unless she has one of her own.

 

[C W Morse]

I run 75/80M using a 3" dia. screwdriver. Tried hamsticks many years ago and found them wanting on the low bands. It takes a BIG, UGLY, HONKIN' antenna for successful 75 Meter work. I guess you could say HF antennas are "ugly", but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I'm sold on the screwdriver simply because, after 40+ years of HF and various antennas, I've had the best overall success with them. My first one was Don Johnson's DK3. I didn't like the PVC so I looked for better materials and settled on black nylon. Works very well, and takes power that PVC will shrivel under! Usually, if I can hear 'em, I can work 'em. And that's the idea! Plus the added fun of being able to switch bands without stopping. Of course, the Hustlers are "automatic" as well, but according to the antenna shootouts, the screwdrivers still win signal-wise. I think it is because the Hustler (and other fixed antennas) ARE fixed/pretuned and cannot be easily changed underway. The screwdriver is tuned for the conditions that exist at the moment, thus a better match and signal. IF you are talking to a rare DX station and a big rig comes alongside, it will likely skyrocket the SWR, and you lose the station (DRAT! :evil: ). But with a flip of the switch, you are back in tune taking into account the presence of the big truck beside you. When he leaves, you can bump it back into tune and keep talking! I just like the screwdrivers!
73

CWM

 

[Beetle]

It's a relatively LOW frequency, so the antenna has to be relatively BIG, which might not be visually pleasing, so there's the UGLY...

But how do you get an antenna to "honk"? And for what purpose?

 

[995]

Beetle, Big is beautiful

 

[C W Morse]

It's a relatively LOW frequency, so the antenna has to be relatively BIG, which might not be visually pleasing, so there's the UGLY...

But how do you get an antenna to "honk"? And for what purpose?

When it catches COLD (AH-AH-AH-CHOOOOOOOOOOOO!)

73

 

[Beetle]

Oh. Okay. :shock: