Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Great Day for Buddipole


This afternoon it was such a nice day I decided to put the Buddipole up. Les (K5RXQ) let me borrow a long whip to try out so I tried the vertical with the long whip. Instead of telling how I think it worked, just look at the contacts I made on 20 meters this afternoon.

Arizona
Ukraine
European Russia
Italy
Argentina
Spain
Slovenia
Rockwall, TX

I would say it worked quite well. I noticed I was able to pick up weaker stations that I have not in the past and usually was able to make contact with them using just 50 watts. I guess I will need to buy some of the longer whips for my Buddipole.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Tigertroncis Signalink - Has Many Applications


This weekend, I went over to Les' house (K5RXQ) and we set up our Buddipoles and our portable HF stations. It was fun to compare how the two antennas worked in different configerations. Toward the end of the day with PSK31 not working as good as I had hoped. I started to tune around the CW band just to see what activity was on there. Then I heard a stations calling CQ so It thought I would try to make contact with my CW software in DM-780 and my signalink. This was not the first time I had tried this, but I was able to make contact with this station. He was in Brazil. The Tigertronics Signalink allows me to operate in modes I thought I could never do. With the use of my laptop and the free software, DM-780, it makes any station one that can operate just about any mode. If you have never operated CW or any of the new digital modes, you might be surprised how much fun it is. It is almost to the point I don't like to operate on SSB phone because of how easy it is to make contact to the USA and especially DX stations. If you have been thinking about jumping into these modes, I would recommend the Signalink for its size, ease of setup and ease of use.