[LARC-CQ] CW

[Harmon Morgan]

Let me make some comments, based on results of operations, when I was involved with ARES. 

We found that we could talk around the county, on 75M SSB, just fine during the day, during the Winter. But, during hurricane season, we just could not make it. After a little analysis, the reason for the poor results, was poor 75M antennas used by most ARES members. We tried 60M. Signals were a little better, but few people had 60M antennas. On 40M, usually we had a skip zone. Even when we did not have a skip zone, every time I got on and tried to run a net, I was told I was interfering with stations in Tennessee or Kentucky. I gave up. 

When I was in ARES, we never tried 10M. But, I think we would have run into the same problem with antennas, that we had on 75M. 

Two Meter FM simplex just never worked out. Here again, it was antennas. Most people put up just enough antenna to get into the repeater. If all the repeaters went down, we could have had communications. But, it would have required multiple relays, to cover the county and been quite chaotic. 

Two Meter SSB worked great. Don, WA3RGQ set up his rover at the county line on SR 60, down by River Ranch Estates. I set up my rover on US 98, at the Polk - Pasco county line. That is as far apart as you can get and still be in Polk County. We were each running about 50 watts to small yogis, at about 10 feet. Signals were S-9+. This would have worked great for intra county simplex operation. But, the few people that had Two Meter Multi Mode radios did not want to put up an antenna. 

For a CW net, try Six Meters. Just about all HF radios, made in recent years have 6M. Antennas are small and it is easy to build a simple dipole. Get it 10 feet off the ground and you should be able to work CW around the county. You might even find out that there are interesting things to do on 6M.

Just my two cents or maybe three cents?


Buddy WB4OMG