Guess Who I Heard Today ? //Gil//

[RadioRay]

High winds broke the line holding up my 80-10m dipole, leaving it laying in lower tree tops, AND it's pointed the wrong way to hear France.  However, I heard Gil veeeeery weakly while he was in Morse QSO with a German station.  Gil was using his home made magnetic loop on the balcony and MTR - 5 Watt transceiver! Unfortunately, I heard him probably at the end of the band opening, because by the time the Dk/F4 QSO ended, I tried calling him while he was fading fast. Of course, my RF noise level at this little country cottage is extremely LOW. His RF noise level in an apartment in a town  - I do not know, but local RF noise from chargers, displays, power supplies & etc.  can make a huge difference.

5W, homemade magloop on balcony, distance = 4196.5 mi (6753.7 km)

Food for Thought:   the German station Gil had talked with was easily readable, and -technically- could have relayed some short messages between Gil & I pretty easily. That could be handy in a grid down situation.

72 de RadioRay  ..._ ._

[gil]

Hi Ray. I didn't think about the noise level but you're probably right. The german station, DK8LG,  was using 80W. He gave me a 549. I was also picked up by W1NT on the Reverse Beacon Network, but a quick look at his QRZ page removes any doubt as to why... He also picked me up on Sunday using my friend's Xiegu G1M and an inverted-V on 20, also 5W. That magnetic loop certainly works! A 5m (16'5") perimeter seems to be the best. My previous loop was 6.3m (21') and barely missed 20m, so I could only use it on 30/40m. This one covers 20/30/40 and probably higher, I need to do some more testing...

Looking forward to further testing  :)

Gil.