I tried the same thing with one of my FO432 11 el beams handheld with a bare FT817 this afternoon. This was right after getting home from the VHF Conference in Connecticut. I could hear KP4AO very well on JT65 right out of the speaker. My XYL heard the tones 25 meters away while she was raking leaves in the yard. I handheld the antenna . While at the conference we experimented with small yagis and a preamp. KP4AO was pretty good on a 7 el wood boom yagi, weak on a 3 element yagi, and very weak but audible on just a dipole. The kicker was when AF1T produced his di-pickle, which was a feedpoint with a small pickle on each side that approximated a full half wave on 432. KP4AO was barely detectable on the pickle antenna. Dale, AF1T says he wants to get more gain by building a cu-pickle quad! This may be the first reception of eme with VBD (Vinegar Based Dipole) technology! We actually erected a small eme station for KP4AO that ran off emergency power and was situated in the back of the rear parking lot at the hotel. It attracted much interest and we had great copy on SSB ad CW with the KP4AO running an amplifier. They were sort of weak on SSB when running just 20 watts. We did manage to work them with the VHF club call, W1RJA. The wx was poor, cold with rain.
73 Dave K1WHS
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Barber" david.barber@dbelectronics.co.uk To: "'Moon-Net'" moon-net@list-serv.davidv.net; amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Sunday, April 18, 2010 7:37 PM Subject: [Moon-net] Arecibo on Handy
OK, I know nobody is going to believe this but....on my life...
I have been outside with an FT-817 connected via a very short piece of coax to a Diamond A430S10R (small 10 element beam modified for handheld use) and headphones and KP4AO was just audible on SSB.
Signals were inconsistent but solid enough to copy their callsign and CQ calls around 19.00UTC and the odd information exchange thereafter.
Now they've switched to CW copy is a good 80%.
No signal strength showing on S-Meter of course but who cares.
I would never have believed it had I not heard it with my own ears.
Note: NO preamp was used.
David G8OQW JO01FR
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