DXing In The 80's

During a bit of spring cleaning the other day, my wife found these old QSL cards dating back to the early 1980's. The one above was mine, AW26. I was immediately sent back to a time when CB and particularly DX was outlawed and it was a very clandestine operation to set up a radio station then. The QSL cards had to be sent by post because there was no internet. All very exciting! So here are a few more of them:-

This was from 1EP in Italy, handle "Hawkeye".

Kilo Sierra in Germany, handle "Meteor"

My wife also got in on the act using the callsign ESW26 and made this contact with "Anarchist" in Germany.

There were also a few from USA as you can see here:-

And also good old 'Blighty'

A snapshot in time. I really enjoyed finding these again. What would be very nice would be to get in contact with some of these people if they are still around.

4NEC2c Antenna Modelling Software

 

I have wanted to get into this branch of antenna design for some time now but have always been put off by the endless input selections the programs require that may as well be written in Chinese. No chance of me ever understanding how to use it. I spotted this 4NEC2c antenna visualisation software for Linux whilst browsing the Amateur Radio software section in Synaptic. I thought, 'Why not download and install it and have a good play around with it'. 

My first attempt was to model my 58 foot random wire antenna. Lots of the menus are still a mystery to me so I thought, '....just leave them at the default values'. I then moved on to the values that I did understand which is the X Y and Z geometry, the frequency range and input impedance. So here is my first model :-

 

(See update - this model appears to be incorrect)
 

 

Its interesting to note the gain values as you rotate the model. It seems like the highest gain, +5dB, is at 90 degrees to the wire at about 21MHz. I am still not sure it is entirely accurate but it looks convincing to me.

Update August 2024

Having recently switched back to using Windows, I am now using a different antenna modelling package. I entered the values for my 58 ft wire into this and the results were nothing like the output from 4NEC2c. My conclusion is that this model on this page was constructed incorrectly by myself. I do not blame the software. I am pretty sure that I have entered the wrong information. I have a better understanding of antenna modelling now and I have realised the error of my ways.

This is more like the actual model I should have arrived at:

This is the 7MHz model - not very good. Most of the energy is being radiated upwards (Cloud Warmer)

This is the 28MHz model. Much better with some forward radiation along the X axis.