Hi Gary
FB on the six meter QSOs. You really need a dedicated antenna for
six to really enjoy the band. long wires work, but you need something
better if you start to get serious. I was operating with a loosely
knit group in Kennebunk, Maine, using the call K1N. We set up at a
school and had my K3 on 80 thru 15 meters with two wire antennas strung
from trees. One was a 3 element 20 meter array with a set of reflectors.
The reflector was not set correctly due to a lack of suitable trees. It
still seemed to work OK. The second wire antenna was a simple doublet.
Both were fed with open wire line. We ran 5 watts on solar power. I had
a second K3 on six meters and dragged a 7 element 31 ft boom yagi along
with 30 ft of Rohn 25. We used 1/2" hardline for the feedline. With the
yagi, we heard a lot more than we could work, hearing other Field Day
stations near New York City in NLI, NNJ,and ENY, but could not attract
their attention with our puny 5 watts QRP signal. The band did open on
Sunday morning and we worked a fair amount of Es stations in a few
Florida sections, GA, AL, SC, and NC. The beam helped out a bunch and we
were almost competitive with the local 100 watt FD stations. Locally, we
worked ME, NH, VT, EMA, WMA, ENY, and heard RI, CT, NLI, EPA, and NNJ,
Our QRP status and poor VHF location gave me the idea to bring a good
beam antenna to help us out. I am glad I brought it.
Yes I heard some raunchy sounding signals too. 100 watt bricks running
on low batteries with mic gain fully clockwise can take your breath
away! That ticking sound you heard is an artifact of the K3
synthesizer on a few bands including six meters. There is a mod to help
cure it. You can hear it on a quiet band or with no antenna attached to
the antenna jack.
Dave K1WHS
ps. A few guys thanked us for giving them Navassa this past winter.
(tongue in cheek!)
On 6/28/2016 4:56 AM, Gary Smith wrote:
I've never worked any 6M contacts until Field Day. Never had a 6M
radio till my old K3 but with my 360' of RG-8 and no 6M antenna, it
never happened.
A friend recently gave me 360' of 7/8 50 ohm hardline and I found my
160 sloper with my K3s could hear 6M signals and had a reasonably
decent SWR. None of my other wire antennas could do either well at
all.
I noticed a few things in this little foray, 6M from SE Connecticut
was only open to the 4th call area. I did make one contact to Rhode
Island, not far away.
What I found difficult was the intelligibility of many of the 6M
stations; many sounded almost like they were on LSB but they were on
USB. There was little to understand and it seemed like their signal
was maybe compressed. Others were clear as a bell but I only worked a
few as my amp is 160-10. I'm guessing some of the radios must have
had a problem, I thought it might be indicative of 6M contacts till I
heard the clear stations. But well more than half were impossible to
tune in easily.
Another thing I noticed was when I was using the second preamp in the
K3s, I would hear a clicking in the audio as I tuned. It was like
every increment from the VFO equalled one low volume click. When I
stopped turning the VFO, the clicks stopped. Is this normal?
Now I have RI, FL, GA and SC on 6M! Nice to have some new challenges,
seeing as ATNO in DXCC have become more rare.
73,
Gary
KA1J
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