Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The Summer Wraps Up

Snow today for the first time since May 23. It was a short summer.  Leaves and ground cover are in full blaze of yellow, orange, and red.  The contrast of snow on dark spruce and low-hanging clouds ringing the hills made for a dramatic landscape.  Alas, antenna season wanes quickly.  A 40 meter vertical project hangs in the balance.

Living for much of the summer under threat of wildfires, the station has been largely pieced back together.  A full multi-2 is nearly 100% functional.

The rig has been on quite a bit lately monitoring JT-65A on the low bands.  I have been using JT65-HF for ages, but recently found WSJT-X 1.1 works faster and decodes more effectively on my slow XP PC.

John AL7ID, who lives just a few miles east of KL2R, put up a full-size 160m loop around his property.  Comparisons on the various bands has been interesting.  The 30m band has outstanding worldwide coverage much of the day now, and 40 has had some strong nights for DX.  A61BK was even heard here at midday on a dipole, which was totally anomalous.  160 yields the Lower 48 as sunrise moves across the US, and 80 has been marginal most evenings.

Nearly two weeks ago I was in Anchorage re-building KL7SB's shack with a complete Elecraft K3 line and Microham MK2R+ SO2R box.  I will do it again in a few days.  Given the uncertainty of the 40m project at home, I might as well do something useful.

1 comment:

  1. Okay, I need to use WSJT-X1.1 when I find my shack computer. Sounds like SB's station is awesome! Looking forward to hearing some AK signals hopefully this fall and winter during contest season. Assuming of course I get an antenna up in time! ;0)

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