I figured out why my EME setup was not working. After fixing the antennas, by mistake I fed them out of phase. Instead of getting 1+1=2 I got 1-1=0. I still made one EME QSO when the antenna was off, because out of phase the antenna has peaks about 20 Read more…
I like to operate as assisted to maximize QSO count.This does not always work well with spots from public clusters because 1) many spots have wrong calls, 2) some spots are outside of local propagation, and 3) attractive spots create pileups. I used CW Skimmer via SDR-IQ radio, lately with Read more…
I did a few SSB contests using TenTec 715 external speech processor. With the processor, stations were giving me about 2S better report, an improvement of about 6 db or 4 times. My signal is finally competitive. In CQ 160 phone, I got a second place in the 4th region. Read more…
I own Flex since Sept 2019. The goal was to have SO2R capability onsite, and possibility of a remote operation. First years were painful. Remote connection was iffy; sometimes I could not connect in half an hour. Crashes. New firmware that caused more crashes. Disappearing memories during contesting. Lousy transmit Read more…
My EME setup on 2m is 2 x M2 9 el Yagis, Dow Microwave preamp, FT991 and a 1 KW Beko amp. Until a couple of months ago I was able to make many EME contacts. Sometimes I would not hear stations (ZL and CT8) when my preamp was fried Read more…
I needed a multiplier beam for the Southeast for working Caribbean multipliers. At best far away from my main tower. However the best spot was full of trees shedding branches, and a regular tower would be risky. I remembered constructing a 3 el 20m Spiderbeam using a carbon glass fishing Read more…
Flex 6xxx series is advertised as having a powerful transmit audio because of CESSB implementation. This is one of the reasons I bought the radio. A regular speech processing with IF clipping produces some peaks that need to be suppressed. CESSB is a technique that avoids those peaks leading potentially Read more…
Nov 12-13 was the ARRL EME contest. In contrast to the last year, the moon was visible, the weather was excellent, and I had a 1 KW Beko amp. I could make many QSOs. My EME system is set up outside as I do a manual positioning. I turned the Read more…
I use 3 BEVFLEX boxes for bidirectional beverages using the RG6 cable. One extra plus of the BEVFLEX system is that the boxes can be in the middle of the cable. The beverages work every well. Recently the Western direction stopped working. Was it a broken RX8 switch from Green Read more…
My JK Mid 40 includes “shorty forty” that has low SWR in the CW subband on 40m but up to 3.0:1 at 7.2. That was not a problem when I used the Expert amplifier with the built-in tuner. However I upgraded to the Flex combo of PG XL amp and Read more…