HFU HF Underground
General Category => Amateur Radio => Topic started by: ThaDood on January 07, 2026, 1609 UTC
-
https://winterfieldday.org/ Always a fun event that's growing. No doubt, due to the dead of winter. And, this can be really fun as well, http://www.amrally.com/ Huh, that's a bit later this year. Hopefully, the Southern thunder storms will stay out of the way and propagation will be there for us. It kind of petered-out last last year. BTW, the Heavy Metal Rally was fun, with 40M really taking off, followed by 10M stations on 29MHz, and even heard stuff on 15M, 21.425MHz. Yes, 3885kHz was quite active as well. So, does anyone do any 2M AM out there still? Can't get anyone to try it here.
UPDATE 1/17/2026: Forgot the ARRL VHF / UHF Sweepsteaks for the week. https://www.arrl.org/january-vhf Might be able to do Aurora this time around.
-
Wow!!!! FRI night, lots of SAT, and most of Sunday, and even afterwards in to MON, it's been the best AM Rally for me thus far. 2 1/2 pages of contacts on three bands, 75M, 40M, and even 15M. Too much SSB on 20M, seen 10M 29MHz active, using the 'lil Xiegu rig as a dedicated 10M rig, but didn't work them, when I was working the other bands at the same. Heard some on 1885AM, 160M, I heard ops say that they were going to try 6M, 50.4MHz, but heard nothing there. Heard nothing on 2M AM, and even called CQ on 144.300MHz, with the beam due North. And, I'm not used to this, where everyone seemed to hear me, better than I was hearing them. (That's a 1st...) On 75M, I was running an 80W carrier, with a 3-tube AL-811A amp, with about 11W from a Kenwood TS-2000X, with EXT 5-band EQ / COMP set at 4:1 COMP, and Heil HMM dynamic Mic. Also used MFJ-989D tuner, to match-up the home-brew Windom, with 4:1 Voltage Balun. So, it all came together to work properly this time. I've actually had this setup for over 5 years now. The difference was the opinions received in constant fine-tweaking, power, EQ, and audio, levels. On 40M, and 15M, I just ran 20W barefoot, and everyone still heard me. At 5PM EST, my time, the 40M SW broadcasters would get in there and squash everyone for a couple hours . The Superbowl must of helped to keep some potential ops away, making adjacent +/- 5kHz rejection better on 3885kHz SUN night. And, never heard W1AW this year anywhere. However, in the past, when they were on, it was a moshpit of stations trying to work them. Everything pretty much wound-down around 12:40AM EST Monday. Anyway, great to catch back up with many ops, and even heard & worked new ones to me. Let's hope next year will be this good. Will I get QSL requests from SWL'ers? I have in the past. So, looking forwards to next year.
-
I made a few contacts on 15 meters (21.425 kHz) for the rally this year, around 2100 UTC. I had the same difficulties on 40 meters with the SW broadcast stations as you mentioned. Lots of rally stations heard but I could not get any attention with my 25watt carrier on 40m this year :(.