The joys of CW!

The joys of CW!

MI0WWB (30CW367) 02 Aug 2023 19:31

I have spent a considerable amount of time calling out on 30m and you always get a reward. Mostly when I CQ its on 10.126 and this evening I was calling out on this frequency running 5 watts, which is my preference, but no replies. So I increased the power to 50W and immediately SF7YT came back. We had a great QSO for 12 minutes. At the end after we exchanged 73 etc he said I see Ballygowan on the map. I replies in jest, not many will even know of Ballygowan, he then came back with the names of neighbouring towns. What a nice way to end a QSO!

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Will de mi0wwb

Last edited on 02 Aug 2023 19:43 by MI0WWB (30CW367) Show more

Re: The joys of CW!

G4OJW 02 Aug 2023 20:46

That's great indeed! Yes, it could be coincidence of course, or when QRP you weren't heard, but some OPs certainly avoid calling weaker stations, maybe due to their noise level or sometimes I think they only want to have a SNR of 3 S points or more. Personally, I enjoy the challenge of picking out a signal from below the noise, so long as the noise isn't too high, it's certainly off putting if you have a noise level of S5 or more as I experienced in cities!

What is your local noise level like there on 30m? And have you seen RSN? Some of us now use that as a useful signal reporting system.

Re: The joys of CW!

MI0WWB (30CW367) 02 Aug 2023 20:55

When operating the KX2 I was getting S2 noise, occasionally peaking into S3, so it was pretty good. Using the K3S was just marginally higher S3 mostly, and it made no difference if I powered the rig from a battery, compared to the linear power supply. So I have nothing to complain about.

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Will de mi0wwb

Re: The joys of CW!

G4OJW 03 Aug 2023 07:23

That's good. Are you sure the noise level was different between the two rigs? Almost all rigs are ONLY calibrated at S9, if we don't calibrate at two points and use extra components costing a few dollars more in the rig, unlike commercial radios, amateur equipment even the most expensive (FLEX being one exception I think) are completely unreliable when it comes to anything below S9 and above S9, usually in the range below S5, the needle may not even start to move until a real S4 or 5 depending on the model, and above S9+15 or so. VU2NSB.com has an excellent article comparing various rigs and showing that all of them are notoriously inaccurate, some below S6, others below S4. So when you see S2 noise on the meter, you may swap over your rig and see S3 noise on the other, but in reality it may be S4 or even S5 noise on both!

Last edited on 04 Aug 2023 04:38 by G4OJW Show more