Wednesday 8 January 2014

Informal 6-Metre Net

Bob VE3WY, Steve VE3UT and I got together on 6 metres on Monday night to test the feasibility of having a an informal experimental weekly simplex net on 6 metre upper sideband. Unfortunately for Steve, there was a strong noise source on the frequency we chose - 50.160. Bob and I had a nice long conversation despite some extra noise at my end which was probably the result of my antenna not liking the extreme cold - and I logged my first ever 6 metre QSO which was confirmed with a hand-delivered VE3WY QSL card. Bob and I were also running different antenna polarisations as he was using a Yagi and me my old Butternut HF6V vertical, which theoretically costs about 20db. We are about 30km apart although there are few obstructions.

At last night's club meeting there seemed to be several members interested in participating. Most modern HF rigs have 6 metres, as do many multiband antennas (especially verticals). If you don't have a suitable antenna you still might be able to get some RF out using a tuner, or as 6 metre antennas are relatively small, try putting something together yourself. You will get lots of advice from club members on how to do that.

So for the foreseeable future we will meet on Mondays, at let's say 50.175 MHz USB for now, at 8pm Eastern Time. This is not an EmComm exercise and I expect it will mostly be an exchange of signal reports by and for each station, followed by a discussion about whatever we'd like to talk about. The experience we get with 6 metre simplex may help EmComm down the road, of course. With respect to the possibility of interference with DX'ers, should the band actually be open I expect we'd have a quick exchange and all go DX hunting ourselves. One desirable outcome of the net would be to get some enhanced propagation which is the exciting aspect of this band. The net is a great opportunity to shake down your 6 metre setup with on-air testing, and as Bob pointed out at last night's meeting, any level of amateur radio operator's certificate is allowed to use the band.

All contacts with VE3NRT will be uploaded to LoTW on my regular Sunday pm upload. I've published this on the blog first to encourage comments and to give blog readers a bit of an edge. If you're not a member of the club we'd still be happy to hear from you.

73,
Chris

3 comments:

  1. Without a 6m rig, I tossed together my RTL DV-dongle and could tune you guys in on 50.1725Mhz. Certainly some fade but couldn't hear Brad or Chris at all...caught a N5 and Charlie SYK.
    I did a couple of screen grabs for this post, but I don't see it letting me post imagery.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Steve,

    Thanks for the SWL report :-) Charlie was the winner tonight he could hear IBW, HII, UT and me. I couldn’t hear UT.

    I don't think you can post pictures directly but you can probably insert links using html to images posted somewhere else. If you'd like to send them to me in an email I can post them.

    73,
    Chris

    ReplyDelete
  3. I posted to the Club FB page.
    https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153725982320188&set=gm.10152122431990751&type=1&theater

    ReplyDelete