During a recent outing I heard lots of operators complain about band conditions and having trouble making contacts. I ended that day with well over 100 QSOs, so I'm offering some tips to help out new activators.
1. Go QRO. Poor band conditions are the wrong time to try QRP. If you have a 7300 in the shack, take it with you instead of the 705. If your only rig is QRP, stick to more effecient modes like CW or FT8.
2. Use effecient antennas. End-fed antenna transformers have up to 3dB of loss cutting signals in half. Try a resonant quarter-wave vertical or half-wave dipole instead.
3. For vertical antennas, consider adding a few extra radials to increase effeciency and performance.
4. Operate near water. Even fresh water can provide a good boost by acting as a reflector and may be far more useful than altitude. On HF you might be better off in a lake valley than a dry mountaintop.
5. On higher bands like 15m and 10m hunt instead of just calling CQ. This can be more effective because skywaves on bands above 20m hit smaller circles on the Earth and reduce your audience.
6. Operate in General class band segments to maximize results.
7. Get spotted. If you don't have internet in a remote park, ask your first contact to spot you.
73 and good luck
WV1W |
