Sebastian⚡ @sebastian@chaos.social

After spending 5h trying to get the FD-3 antenna in tune for at least the 40m band, I have to give up.
Can't be done. I'd rather look for a solution to run the feeder cable differently and go for a regular λ/2 dipole for 40m.

Oh okay ... something called Glenspey 160km from the City New York as he explained to HB9GF(?).

Surprisingly clear even though its raining here.

Wow ... I can hear NY2PO calling over the noise on 40m. And his QTH seems to be New York. Seem like having a proper antenna makes really makes a difference.

This wspr thing is getting ridiculous. 2543km with 1W. How this this even physics?
Also I've got FD-3 attached to the facade now. Its VSWR is about 4 ... it sucks. Still gets me to north iceland.

Surprisingly not pointing the thing at the window, which has insulated glass, which is basically glass with a metal film on top, does seem to a difference ... 🤦‍♂️

Now that I finally got my return loss bridge, got qspectrumanalyzer running again and know how actually calculate VSWR from return loss ... I can measure my dual band yagi. Well... could be worse.

The new measure feature in #kicad is pretty neat. I like it.

Weekend starter kit

Also there is lots of CW going on.
https://peertube.social/videos/watch/129c1b1f-5b28-4ea9-b703-7e1a8800b040

Contest on 40m ... They all sound slightly stressed from here. Good luck to every one.

Okay Leute. Wer von euch war das und wo bekomme ich mehr davon?

Quick conclusion to my antenna experiments.
My 250mW PA outputs 3.45v RMS over a 50Ohm dummy load. (3.45v)^2 / 50Ohm = 238mW RMS. For the antenna I can see 3.77v RMS so (3.77v)^2 / 238mW = 59.7Ohm So the impedance of the antenna is not all that horrible.

I'll have to correct that ... new measurements revealed that for some reason the PA was running a little 'hot' putting out between 750mW and 1W instead of the 250mW it is designed for. A quick turn at the adjustment pot fixed it. I still get comperable ranges.

It actually works really well already. My signal got picked up by GM4SFW near Maryburgh Scotland. That's about 1171km from my current location. And I'm still running on only 250mW.

Testing my new antenna. I can tell by the waveform on the scope that the swr is horrible. There is not much power actually going into the antenna at 7MHz. Still works for wspr though. I'll fix the balun as soon as my swr bridge arrives.

A 10m antenna is still a little short for 40m/7Mhz, still I managed 734km repeatedly.

Notice the patent pending Club-Mate antenna counterweight.

Woah ... this #wspr truely is some form of black magic.
ATmega8, Si5351, a single BS170, some hand-wound inductors and 3m of random wire tensioned across the room gets you about halfway across the country.