Svar till: Christmas Eve Morning Transmission 2018

[Christopher Bowne]

After a couple of years without success (including sleeping through my alarm and missing it one year) I finally heard SAQs beautiful note direct on 17.2 kHz on Stonington Point CT this Christmas Eve. Solid copy at-93 dBm on a Wandell und Goltermann AT-611 Selective Level Meter at 400 Hz bandwidth. Antenna was an approximate 100 foot wire connected to my Tacoma 4X4 pickup’s HF mobile antenna feed point, laid on stones protecting the east side of the point from the ocean, about 10 feet from the salt water that surrounds the Point at the eastern end of the CT shoreline. The WuG was powered by a small 12V DC to 115 VAC inverter. Watched the streaming video on YouTube while listening. My fAvorite part of the video was hearing relays hammering in time to the keying accomponied by the flashing of arcing across the relaycontacts in the panels. What were the two small plank pieces of machinery they crew was operating early on the video? Oil and or cooling water pumps? After copying the massage I tried working SK6SAQ on 7035 kHz, but my 5 watts from a K1 Elecraft to a 40 meter Hamstick on the Tacoma could not break the pile up of EU stations.

Interesting to see the number of people using SDRs to copy. Talk about two ends of the electronic communication evolution timeline – SAQ being copied on SDRs!

Merry Christmas to all! Hopefully will have an SDR as well as the WuG on Stonington Point for a the next SAQ operation!

Chris, AJ1G
Stonington, CT USA