[Lf] VE1ZJ / G0MRF / VE1ZZ- LF QSO

[Andre' Kesteloot]

G0MRF at aol.com wrote:

> Hello All.
>
> Thanks for all the best wishes to John and me passed via the reflector in the
> past 24 hours.
>
> My operation on 9 / 10 Sept was a continuation of  an attempt to construct
> and test a loaded dipole for 136kHz. Despite building a scale model at
> 2.5MHz, Saturday night's experiment also failed. I managed to get a
> reasonable match but discovered that all the current was flowing around the
> link coupling coil with non actually making it to the elements. Oh well!
>
> Equipment / site / antenna.
>
> The location for G0MRF was a  West London tower block in Feltham, just South
> of Heathrow airport.  The 15th story, top floor flat, is the home of  Sean
> Griffin 2E1AXK. We were joined by Tony Fell G7DGW.
> The dipole was 're-worked'  to give a standard sloping antenna with two wires
> each 250 feet long. The angle between the two was about 60 -80 degrees. The
> ends of the wires were about 30 feet above ground and tied off with 50 lb
> breaking strain fishing line.  The earth was connected to the plumbing system
> of the building.  The antenna was of coarse fed from the top, at about 160
> feet AGL.
>
> Loading was a combination of fixed inductor in series with a variable coil.
> Matching was achieved by earthing the base of the fixed coil and tapping a
> few turns up.
> Once this was wired up I used an amplified DDS source to drive a modified
> version of the reflectometer bridge published in rad-com 9/2000. With this
> little circuit  ( 3 x 50R resistors and a transformer) the antenna loading
> and matching was completed in less than  3 minutes.
>
> The transmitter was a converted Decca unit with a DC input of 58 Volts at 15
> Amps.
> Antenna current peaked at  7.2 Amps. Drive was a 'SM6LKM' DDS with 0.25Hz
> steps at 136k.
>
> John Larry and Jack on the other side of the Atlantic were all aware of the
> schedule and frequency for the tests. After about an hour John called to
> confirm he could see the signals and would I QSY up 1Hz to clear a Loran
> line. No problem.
>
> The crossband QSO was then completed without problem with 'O' signals on both
> 135.711 and 14.043 MHz.
>
> Interestingly I then reduced power to just 400W DC input, or about 320W TX
> output and John reported an M signal. Even allowing for the large antenna I
> believe this shows that Many UK / EU stations will be able to make the
> transatlantic path this winter.
>
> In another telephone conversation, John reported that Jack VE1ZZ was
> transmitting on 136.5kHz using a long horizontal antenna ('OLB style)
> Unfortunately, Jack does not have a computer for QRS.
> Using Spectran with about 40Hz across the screen we looked very closely for
> Jacks 10 second dashes. After about a minute we spotted several dashes,
> broken by static, about 8Hz above 136.500.
> In a phone call to Jack I asked are you transmitting now 8Hz off frequency?
> No said Jack, my counter says its only 7 Hz...........I'll settle for that.
>
> In one evening:  136kHz signals from the UK heard in Canada and CT
>                 A QSO crossband to 20m G/VE
>                 136kHz signals transmitted from Canada heard in the UK
>
> With a real sense of achievement and elation I arrived home only to be
> confronted by a family tragedy. Consequently, today, Sunday, is a day of
> mixed emotions and I hope those of you who have been kind enough to send me
> personal e-mails will accept both my apologies and this general reply.
>
> 73
>
> David
>
>