Hardly a massive achievement for most, but I managed my first ever transatlantic 6m QSO this evening.
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| That old magic of something new... |
Armed with just 50W from a 2-ele quad, but a good aspect out over the Atlantic, I managed to complete a QSO in a big FT8 pile up with HI3T - Ted Jimenez - in the Dominican Republic. If the path was very low, the ERP was about 630W. At somewhat higher elevations, more like 315W ERP.
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| 6700km - very happy! |
I thought it might be a good night, as I briefly heard an Eastern European commercial FM station on 94.70MHz in the car at 17:50UT, and switched on the rig straight away when I got home.
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| Old, cheap, and slightly rickety, but it worked! |
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| Terrain analysis under HFTA (ARRL). Up to +11dB gain at just 3 degrees. |
Certainly, I need to keep the quad aimed across the pond more often from now on. Maybe time for a new support and rotator? But then, I'm still thinking about 2m SSB. So much to do. So little time. Even less money...
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