PA0O ham radio

 

 Again good tropo   and a long m.s. FT8  burst 1734km  to YO3YKT this burst was 1903Z and noticed by more local hams must have been a bigger meteor, that is the advantage of FT8 mode events like that will be noticed with so many observers at 144.174   Strange enough the 144.174 was overloaded with signals but no one went to FT4 or an alternative frequency as this is the procedure at 6m and HF. VHF UHF amateurs in general are old-fashioned  in operating technics .. Also rarely PC logging or LOTW  is used by VHF/UHF hams .. but FT8 yes most do .. Everybody likes doing  CW the real mode  but in real activity events ... not... best 2-way EW6FS 1334km   Red =6m pink 28MHz And at 432 MHz  SM0KAK FT8/ CW    SM3LBN  -6 did not hear my 25W / 23ele signal 40W -3dB cable estimated at 432 MHz   FT8 SP2WRH CW SP2HMR

   Very busy CW band during the Marconi CW  excellent propagation. The N1MM bandmap was filled from 144.0 to 144.150 rarely seen in the FT8 era.. First time used the Flex6500 plus the Ukraine UR3LMZ setup as in my previous post. That worked very nice, the Maestro as control. Doing  only S&P no CQ runs, wtKST was on so I was open for skeds.  I did cherry picking and there where lots of cherry's on.. The result is a very high average distance 733km over 85 QSO on 2m. A full contest station of course  should work al stations on the band. My tx signal was clean I could come very close to competitors without IMD or reciprocal noise. So the Ukraine transverter is excellent as long as its internal l.o. is not used. And the Flex has very low  internal noise. I use an older SSB LNA close to the 12 ele  dual band  Antenna & Amplifiers. This SSB LNA can handle max 400W  it's nf is not extreme low measured about 1.7 or so at144MHz But it re...