For a few months, now, I have been working, on and off, on 30 meters and I’m up to 46 states by using FT8. That’s not an exceptional thing, though, until you realize that the Buckmaster 7 band off center fed dipole (which is what I’m using) is not supposed to work on 30 meters. The power getting reflected back to the radio is a little high (3.1:1 SWR), but I keep the power turned down, and the effective radiated power out of the antenna is about 25 watts. With that, I have actually seen amazing results. Like I said, 46 states, so far, and the furthest DX contact on 30m has been southern Australia.
The only states that I need on 30 meters are AK, ME, ND, and SD. I have a feeling that AK may be the hardest to get, since I don’t recall ever hearing any stations from AK on 30m.
Tonight, I tried tuning over to 1.840 MHz, which is the 160 meter FT8 frequency. I heard a few stations, which is more than I think I had ever heard in the past, there. Partly due to interference, and probably mostly due to conditions and antenna. Even though my FT-991A will not tune to 160m using this Buckmaster 7 band OCFD, it will still allow me to transmit with an SWR of 3.1:1. I, of course, turned the power way down, and I am getting an effective radiated power of about 21 watts out of the antenna.
Amazingly, I got my first two contacts on 160 meters, tonight. One station in Texas and another in Wisconsin. Very surprisingly, I got an FT8 report of +12 from the Wisconsin station, even though I heard him at a -17.
After the two contacts were made, the band and all of the signals seemed to drop out. I made a few more CQ calls, but heard nothing more from anybody. It’s late, and I need to work, tomorrow, so I gave up.
I was so excited, though, that I needed to get this out there. I am not sure if I am more happy with the antenna or the radio (or the mode) at this point. Where I am located, there is absolutely no way for me to even think about putting up a legitimate 160 meter antenna, so the fact that I was able to even pull off those two contacts has me really excited.