Marty,
First, I wouldn't worry about those who worked XX9C out of band (and he was
59+30 over here in WPA too, darn it!) If they don't hear from the FCC, I'm
sure that they'll get an OO notice, or as some have been calling them
lately, Popkin-grams. (If you get an envelope with a blacked out return
address and 30 year old stamps on it, you will have been so honored)
Propagation to SE Asia has been unusual. On 10 meters, I would start
hearing DU's, JA's and HL's around 2130 - 2200 Z lately (getting earlier as
dusk gets earlier) with the occasional BY or BV following closely (usually
because there aren't as many of them on). So that's about the same time I'd
expect to hear XX9 and VR2/VS2 stations to chime in also. I usually don't
need the amp to work them, I've had a lot of success running 100 W to my 10
M vertical (I'm also on a city lot. OK, a double lot, but it's still close
enough to Pittsburgh that I have to watch the wind direction when I spit in
the front yard. Should have snuck my tower up while there was still a ham
on the borough council, can't get away with it now under the new zoning
passed since he became SK). The power helps when there's a pileup -- one of
these days I'll punch through to P5/4L4FN, I can usually copy him 20/9, and
the pileup 40/9 g.
Fix or replace your mike. The PTT switch isn't the problem (it's just an
inconvenience) but I suspect that the mike element may have been damaged.
You can probably pick up a good used mike for around $25 -- I've bought a
few Kenwood hand mikes that way from people who got them with their HF rigs
and opted for a desk mike (incidently, Kenwood and Alinco mikes are wired
the same and are interchangeable. At least the mike PTT part are -- I
have Kenwood mikes on both of my Alinco V/UHF rigs since the Alinco mikes
failed, but that's another story). That might explain your low audio. Also
make sure the mike gain on the rig is set correctly, if it's too low, you're
not modulating the rig very well. See if you can borrow a station monitor
like the old Heath SB-604 or -614 to monitor your output signal, you might
be surprised.
I don't think your antenna, antenna height, or the rain were big factors. I
suspect that if you had given in and dropped below the band edge, you would
have had no problem working him. Just be patient... you will get them.
Sidenote: XX9 is what cured me of DX nets. Was over at KQ3DX's house one
weekday morning, many moons ago during the last cycle (had the AM off
because I had to stay late that night to update a file server with more
memory new hard drives, but I digress from the digression), looking for
Asia. Heard a DX net on 15 that had an XX9 on frequency. Checked in to
work him, and before I could, he checked out. Went down the band a bit,
called CQ, and low and behold, a different station, XX9MD, came back to me
on the first call. I haven't been on a DX net since, I've since learned
that I don't need them.
73, ron wn3vaw
Be who you are, say what you think, people that matter don't care, and
people that care don't matter. -- Dr. Seuss
- Original Message -
From: Marty Blaise AG5T [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 3:59 PM
Subject: [DX-CHAT] XX9C, propagation from W5, out of band contacts, etc.
I have some questions and an observation - first of all, I hope all the
U.S. stations who worked XX9C in the cqww dx ssb contest get a nice letter
from Riley. The frequency of 21.198 isn't exactly in the phone portion of
U.S. priviledges on 15 meters. Apparently the XX9C gang did not know that
either as they were working the U.S. stations on that frequency as well.
Unfortunately that was the best I heard XX9C the entire weekend - I still
have yet to work any XX9 on any band. Someone asked them to go up 5 and
they acknowledged the comment but I never heard them operate split, then
they faded in a quick 15 minutes. The other times I saw spots for them it
was at times with no propagation to my area. XX9 is a tough path to my
part of W5 anyway. I realize I could have worked them on 21.198 and just
put 15 meters on the qsl card, but I just could not pull myself to do that.
I think I would rather work them honestly. --- So, I'm still studying
propagation to that part of the world. I've always had a tough time
copying stations from that part of the world - XX9, 9M2, XY, XV, BY. Here
is one thing I'm wondering about - the way my station and antenna, etc. are
setup - could be a factor in trying for those dxcc entities - here is the
setup -- I have a 34 foot small two section tower, supporting a 5-band
gemquad antenna - the antenna is fed with a w2au balun so I do not have
separate feedlines. I am running 100 watts (no amp) and using a Yaesu 747
radio. My microphone antenna may be one of the problems as it has a broken
push-to-talk button that was cracked during an accident. However, I can't
see how it would affect anything. Although I had some hams on 10 meters
