I gave a presentation on the history of transoceanic radio communications to the Frankford Radio Club a few days ago. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLN0MMxCvlc My presentation covers radio technology devel
We've had 92 percent spotless days since May 19th. The last time this happened was more than 100 years ago when there were 93% spotless days from Feb 28 to Oct 24, 1913 books.google.com/books?id=SWdC
Hi Mike, Years ago my 4-square transmitting array used "gull-wing" elevated radials sloping 45 degrees from the feedpoint at ground level to about ten feet high. When I replaced the radials with sixt
Nice job Alan! Many hams are now using those inexpensive filters so they can share their Beverages among three bands without switching. And -- as you noted -- the 160 meter filter does a good job sig
Hi Csaba, My experience is that an extensive radial system on the ground performs significantly better than a few elevated radials. I suspect its difficult to obtain nearly equal currents among a sma
Hi Dave, I remember K5IU's article well. I have no doubt such a system can be made to work well. However, I have no plans to replace my 30,000 feet of radials with elevated radials... Thanks 73 Frank
Mike, I think the performance of a 4-square array may relate to the reason why switching to 30,000 feet of radials made a dramatic improvement. The currents in the elevated radial currents might be b
Climate scientist David Archibald speculates that Solar Cycle 24/25 minimum could be as late as March 2021 and that Cycle 25 maximum might not occur until 2027. wattsupwiththat.com/2019/12/22/solar-u
Hi Roger, My experience is consistent with almost all topband operators: "160 needs vertical polarization for consistent long DX." I've had 160 horizontal dipoles at 100 feet and 200 feet high and I'
Roger has 27 topband QSOs in my log since February 1993, well done! Its interesting how our transmitting antenna experiences are exactly opposite on both 160 and 80 meters. I've had little success wi
How were conditions at W3LPL in Maryland last weekend? Mark KD4D operated here last weekend using his call. Conditions were good Friday night but with troublesome QRN from nearby heavy rain storms. F
Hi Mike, While I can't comment about Mark's specific experiences in this contest, our usual rule of thumb is that you can never have too many antennas. We've found that the 8-circle isn't the best re
Hi Dave, From the Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin No. 1450 dated Feb 3 2020: TT, CHAD (160m) Nicolas, F8FQX (ex-TJ3SN, TN5SN, 5T5SN, TY2CA), who has been in N'Djamena since December and plans to be there for t
Hi Jim, See www.qrz.com/db/TT8SN 73 Frank W3LPL -- Original Message -- Very few spots for him aggregated by DXWatch show him on 160 or 80 at times when there's a path to NA. I need TT on both bands.
Many of these old transmitting mica capacitors have reliability issues. Their foil-mica technology is very obsolete and their molded enclosures often leak moisture and contaminants. On the good side,
Send me a list of your transmitting capacitor needs needs. Ten bucks each shipped to your door. 73 Frank W3LPL -- Original Message -- Surplus Sales of Nebraska has a large supply of Molded Broadcast
Hi Roger, I heard you CQing early this morning (of course you were already in the log). You had en excellent signal right up there with the best European signals. I hope you try again tonight 73 Fran
Hi Roger, Topband propagation to Europe was about as good as it gets this weekend, except Sunday night when it was significantly depressed. I compared your signal to the three other UK stations who w
Hi Dave, There were several speed demons who were shooting themselves in the foot with endless high speed CQs. Why would anyone send hundreds -- even thousands -- of unanswered high speed CQs on topb
Hi Pete, Symmetrical T-verticals offer a performance improvement over inverted-L verticals but with a major downside if you operate on the higher bands. If the flat top of the T-vertical is near reso