[RMVHF] Greetings from Montana!

[LANCE COLLISTER]

Hi Mark,

I don't think I replied to you before, so I wanted to get back to you about the 
SDR-IQ.  I have had it for over a year, and have not used it that much so far 
except as a spectrum display.  However, I know that the most effective noise 
blankers are those that work on a wide IF, which is one of the main reasons I got 
it.   For EME, I don't usually have much noise because I have the luxury of 
elevating my antennas.  But on the horizon, I remember from the peak of the 
sunspot cycle around 2000 that it seemed I often had bad line noise when aiming at 
the South Pacific.  So, I wanted to have a way to be able to improve the reception 
under such conditions.

I thought that for under $500 and some free software such as Linrad, it seems I 
can have just about the best possible receiver available anywhere at any price. 
We will see how it works out.  Linrad is definitely more difficult to get set up 
and use than a $10,000 state of the art rig...but it is certainly more in MY 
limited budget to go this route.

Mark M wrote:
> Hi Lance!  I have been thinking about acquiring an SDR-IQ, and I think 
> you have now put me over the edge.  I had one here in my shack last year 
> for a few days playing with it and was impressed with using it looking 
> for lowfer/NDB beacons between 137-500 kcs. 

I understand that it works down very low in frequency, so it really provides a way 
to experiment with lower frequencies that are not usually available on our typical 
ham receivers.

  By the way there are many
> meteors out there just no one listening like we used too.  I listen in 
> to you running on six EME here quite often and never fail to hear you 
> when I catch your skeds listed on the JT65 EME page.

I don't get on the N0UK JT65 EME page ( http://www.chris.org/cgi-bin/jt65emeA ) 
because it is so congested with 2m activity, and it is very difficult to 
"highlight" a message being sent to someone's attention.  Instead, I most often 
monitor the ON4KST 6m chat page at http://www.on4kst.info/chat/login.php?band=1 . 
  There are lots of 6m EU stations on there, and it is easy to highlight messages 
so the person you are trying to chat will spot the message.  In addition, it is 
nice to see the TEC and QSO maps, in addition to propagation data and a display of 
the DX Summit postings (and window to make spots yoursel).  It is a really handy 
page, and Alain, ON4KST, has also made a page with the same features available for 
the use of those 6m operators over here who have no interest in trying to contact 
the Europeans:  http://www.on4kst.info/chat/login.php?band=7 .  That page is not 
so well known yet over here, but I imagine come summer more USA 6m operators will 
use it.  It really helps to be able to watch the maps and chart the westward 
migration of the Es clouds, and predict when and which direction things are likely 
to open up out here....especially helpful if you have a pretty directional array - HI!

One very memorable example of how valuable the ON4KST chat page is: When FM5JC 
alerted me and asked me to call him.  I told him the band here sounded totally 
dead, but he said he was coping the first several hops in my direction and he 
still needed Montana on 6m.  So we moved on up the band and when I called him he 
came right back on what was otherwise a dead band at my end!

It seems that last third of fourth hop from the eastern Carib is always the 
deal-breaker up here :-( But with more stations getting on down in the Carib and 
more beginning to have internet access, it should make it easier to learn when 
there might be propagation.

GL with the SDR-IQ, and best wishes for gud DXing this summer!  VY 73, Lance
> 
> 73, Mark, Ku7z
> DN41af
> Ogden, Northern UT (NUT)
> 

-- 
Lance Collister, W7GJ (ex: WN3GPL, WA3GPL, WA1JXN, WA1JXN/C6A, ZF2OC/ZF8)
P.O. Box 73
Frenchtown, MT  59834  USA
QTH: DN27UB
TEL: (406) 626-5728   URL: http://www.bigskyspaces.com/w7gj
2m DXCC #11, 6m DXCC #815

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