The night started off just fine, but, when I went to use my 32 antenna
for 222, i was greeted by a dead band with no radio noise. I was not
sure what went wrong, but shortly after that I started hearing "dead
band' noise on antenna #1, my four yagi array. The background noise
dropped way down. It seems that I could still hear some signals, but
everything was just weak. i did work a number of stations before
everything died. KA2ENE in FN13 had wild swings of signal strength on
FT8. he went from +4 to -14, or almost 20 dB QSB. We worked later on on
SSB too. There was a flurry of activity on FT8 at first. I seem to not
have good luck on Ft8. I have noticed that I can see signals but they
will not decode. The waterfall signal has to be fairly well pronounced
before I will get a decode in many cases. I tried adjusting the audio
input level to the program with no improvement noted. I saw that K3SK
was on FT8 early. I could see a signal on the waterfall that I suspected
was Dave, K3SK, so I asked if he would try Q65 instead. He was darn loud
on Q65 but would not decode and his signal would disappear so it would
not decode. Turns out that he was using 30 seconds while I was on a 60
second sequence. Once we corrected that, we made a contact but signals
were much weaker by then. FM07 is a good haul from me at about 570
miles. Other stations worked included WZ1V FN31, K1PXE FN31, WA4YA FN42
on FT8, w1AUv FN32, K2AEP FN32, K1TEO FN31, N3RG FM29, WA3DRC FM28,
KA3FQS FN20, WA3NUF FN20, W1AIM FN34, WW1Z FN42, KC2SGV FM29, W9KXI
FN12, W2KV FN20, W1XIV FN34, K1RZ FM19, W7JW EN82 meteors, K9MRI EN70
meteors, and then WA3EOQ on CW in FM09. Howard was very weak and I
think whatever was wrong with my RX setup was killing my RX sensitivity.
The problem affected my TX as well, which makes me think that the LO in
my xverter might be the problem as I lost about 10 to 15 dB of gain in
both RX and TX. Just what I need before the Sept contest. It looks like
I will be QRT for awhile as a result.I ended up with about 23 stations
worked oer the evening. I saw that W4ZST and W6TCP were on EME, but I
did not bother with all my rig troubles. I did hear K1OR, but never
worked John. He is about 45 miles away and very loud. He and WA1T are
locals here! My total was about 23 stations worked.
I'll be checking TX and RX levels in the morning in hopes of finding
what is wrong with the gear. As I mentioned before, I suspect my
transverter is sick as both RX and TX are affected.
73
Dave K1WHS
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