HFU HF Underground

General Category => Amateur Radio => Topic started by: Josh on March 20, 2020, 2251 UTC

Title: On the HAM bands
Post by: Josh on March 20, 2020, 2251 UTC
Started on 20m and clean band with a few strong sigs and some south American dx with a lot of strong sigs coming from  the western US. Moved to 17m and there were several dx stas, one from Caracas, then on to 15m. 15m had a lot of band noise for some reason, noise absent from the other bands, and there was dx under that noise, infuriatingly. Next tried 10m and a wp4 sta is calling cq on 28412 at 2250Z.
Title: Re: On the HAM bands
Post by: Matt285 on March 23, 2020, 1636 UTC
I got on 17m last week and while viewing the whole band on my SDR and small loop I noticed only one station out of Cuba, but it was very loud. I don't remember the call at the moment. I Was able to get a full exchange. Great signals when there's activity. There is another station out of Cuba that I've worked many times (CO8LY) He's very active and has quite an antenna setup.
Title: Re: On the HAM bands
Post by: Josh on March 23, 2020, 2013 UTC
Always call cq on a seemingly empty band, you never know who is listening.
Title: Re: On the HAM bands
Post by: Matt285 on March 24, 2020, 1131 UTC
That is very true.
Title: Re: On the HAM bands
Post by: Pigmeat on March 31, 2020, 1245 UTC
Always call cq on a seemingly empty band, you never know who is listening.

Tell me about it. I once heard a weak AM station calling CQ a couple of decades ago. One of the local big dog's answered back and we all got the shock of our lives, the fella who originally called CQ was in Lake Havasu City, AZ.
Title: Re: On the HAM bands
Post by: Matt285 on March 31, 2020, 1342 UTC
There have been some decent openings into Europe lately. Yesterday I worked stations in Switzerland, Slovenia, Hungary on 20m CW. I heard guys that were state side working many others including a mid west station working South Africa. Haven't heard that in a while. Wish I had a Yagi ):