#160m — Public Fediverse posts

Tonight’s (already running) A/B #HamRadio #antenna test is #160m #WSPR (RX only) between 6-80 #DXCommander vertical & this ferrite rod magnetic loop, indoors, on my bench.

This Icom 746 can tune almost anything, I got it to tune my #EFHW8010 for #160m / #FT8 (which is surprising, consider I sometimes have trouble tuning #40m and #80m with it, heh, probably because I had to splice it back together at some point and probably lost a little bit in length)

I've heard the phrase, "my tuner could tune a coat hanger"

I might need to try that 😂 with this, lol

#HamRadio

whoa, I made my first contact on #160m 😮

my antenna is only an #EFHW8010 but I turned down to 160m and tried to see if the beast of the Icom 746 could tune it, and surprisingly it got the SWR less than 2:1, heh

though, I don't think the radio likes it, because after transmitting the tuner feature turns of

anyways, enough of that, at least I was able to make one #FT8 contact on 160m 🙂

(also, I'm awake way too early, lol)

#160m conditions are very poor tonight, so it didn't pay off to get out of bed so early, but I worked LC9X (LA9XGA) and he has a really cool remote setup on a hill, connected by a 5 GHz link to his home: https://www.qrz.com/db/LA9XGA #hamradio

Radio Propagation

Quite chuffed that I received W1CDO (but not worked - no transmitter set up here) on Top Band (160m) FT8 this morning.

W1CDO is located in Washington State, near Seattle, at a distance of 7616 km from me in Plymouth, UK. My receive setup is a 2m circumference Airspy Youloop at 3m above ground (and behind a 15m tall house), RX888 SDR receiver and WSJT-X FT8 decoder.

#RadioPropagation
#AmateurRadio
#TopBand
#160m

@jlewallen oh no! yeah, that would be a rough start, but I'm glad you got it all fixed up

yeah, someday I'd like to pull off a #160m or #80m dipole

My EFHW is about 130ft-ish (40 meters) and when I bought it, they said it can "do #80m without a tuner" lol I have to use MFJ949E and even then it isn't perfect, heh

I had set up a vertical EFHW with a 64:1 unun for use in 10 and 12 m. Last night I used my MFJ-949 tuner to use it on 160 m and I completed 3 FT8 QSOs, all with EA1 and EA2 stations inputting 15 W into the antenna. This morning I worked F5MYK and EA1EMB. I had never worked this band before. #160m #MF #FT8

Has anyone had any experience with the Chameleon Modular Portable Antenna System? Does it really cover everything from #6m to #160m? I'm grappling with that overriding "if it sounds too good to be true..." rule.

Found the missing coil of wire from last year and put up the 1/4λ #160m inverted-L #antenna on the 12m Spiderbeam pole and a line thrown over a tree.

Ran a counterpoise at a ~120° angle (top-down view) up the hedgerow. Shady move: I tuned it by shortening the counterpoise, not because it was a good idea, but because it was easy. Do I have a horizontal radiator 6' off the ground with an inverted-L for a counterpoise?

Anyway, SWR is ~1.3 and I worked Minnesota on it last night, proving nothing

Might as well see if anyone wants me #160m #ft8