When your base station is a little 5 watt HT and your “big” HF rig is a mobile, it always seems like everyone else has the advantage. Those expensive radios. The huge multi-element beams. On towers. And the towers are always somewhere like the very top of the Smokey Mountains! The lowest loss feed line. 7,000,000 counterpoise radials buried at various depths. That hot balun AND tuner! And of course, they run power. Legal limit usually. And they have every meter and gauge imaginable. I often imagine their ham shack looks like the deck of the starship Enterprise with all the digital readouts… And they ALWAYS can make better contacts.
Well… not always, actually. I heard a qso the other day on 2 meters that brought a smile to my face. And I discuss it – not to brag – but to give some reminders of things to consider. The gentleman was discussing his lack of QSO’s on 40 meters. AHA! My favorite band! He said that he was unable to break pile-ups. OK – that’s not uncommon. But he also complained that he could hear the pile-up but could not hear the station that everyone else was trying to reach. And he was frustrated because he said he was running “plenty of power”. He defined that as around 850 watts.
Now, in my mobile I consider “plenty of power” to be 100 watts. Usually – if I can hear a station with a strong signal then I can talk to them. Most of the time, the strong signals on 40 meters have well balanced stations. That does not imply that no one runs power on the 40 meters ham band. Quite the contrary. But there are a lot of sharp operators on that band. And they generally know that probably the most important part of their station is antenna system. I say probably because yes – some more power will give you an edge in high noise conditions and at the margin. But running a lot of power in times of lousy atmospheric conditions won’t make the grade more times than not. And I say “system” because when I hear these strong stations, I find that they have all the angles covered for a good “system”. Most people know that it’s best to NOT run a tuner. A tuner does NOT provide efficiency to the antenna. It merely fools the radio into thinking there is a good, efficient SWR match. But reality is that there is not. The better move is to have an antenna that is cut to the correct length and is highly efficient and transmits most of the power it receives. You can run 850 watts, but if only a small percentage of that power makes it out of the antenna, it will get beaten by a 100 watt rig!
I have been frankly surprised by the number of people that run a good number of ground radials (called counterpoise – a weird term). I had not heard that term in CB or SWL realities. And yeah – it was on the exams and I got the questions right. But I really did not understand the actual effect that it has on the quality of signals. That’s where some operating experience comes in. I had thought it was maybe just used in situations where there was a bad natural ground or something. I was wrong and I learned. A good thing!
I have heard some of the old “guru” hams chuckle that receive is the most important part of the system. “If you can’t hear them – you can’t talk to them…”. I have found that to be very true. AND – you can’t hear them at the wrong time of day or night for the particular band. 40 meters, for example, will change what part of the country or world you can hear, and therefore talk to, at different times of day or night. If you try at the wrong time – it’s not going to work.
I have heard a LOT of guys claim that you can’t make ANY contacts on HF because of the lack of sun spots. BULL COOKIES! I do agree that it has a dramatic effect. But there are hams that will tell you on the air that it hasn’t been this bad since WW II. I strongly suspect that they remember the thrill of making that first contact with Europe after hearing so much about it in the press. Can ANYTHING be as good as THAT? I know I remember my very first HF contact via my mobile. A Texas station – from Green Bay, WI. What could be better than THAT??? Well – a bit later it was that station from ITALY on summer night in the recent past! Surely that is as good as it gets? And those were both with no sun spots and only 100 watts…
Now – I don’t want to give the impression that I am one of these minimalists that I admire. Because I am not. I would love to have the huge station. But you do the best with what you have at the time. So I encourage you to check that SWR on your station. At least once a year if not every time you transmit. And check it WITHOUT that tuner to get the REAL picture. Before you key up, listen. If you can’t hear a station, adjust your expectations. Get to know how different bands function at different times of the day. And spend some time listening to some of these big stations that you seem to hear day after day… If they run ground radials on their base station, then maybe a couple of ground straps on your mobile station would help?
Stay radio active!
Jon Kreski, AB9NN
http://www.HamRadioResources.com
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