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Author Topic: General History of Amateur HF Receivers, over the past 50 some years...  (Read 449 times)

K7JQ

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Re: General History of Amateur HF Receivers, over the past 50 some years...
« Reply #15 on: August 15, 2022, 10:05:29 AM »

A couple of other panadapter/waterfall advantages that I neglected to convey on my post above:

In contests, many "big guns" tend to run (call CQ) in the lower to mid areas of that mode's band segment...the crowded sections. And many S&P'ers tend to concentrate around those areas. With a scope, you can always "see" what's happening at the upper, less crowded reaches of the segment's edges...where the "little pistols" (drowned out in the crowds) migrate to try their hand at running. If you spot a new "blip" up there, you can catch/pounce on someone you ordinarily might miss...and it just might be a new mult!

If you're fortunate enough to have the antennas and power, giving you a strong signal that lets you run and handle pile-ups 95% of the time (especially in a rare country, or states like Wyoming or the Dakotas), even if you're not using your panadapter, they can be indirectly beneficial to you. The S&P hams using *their* scopes can see your huge "blip" and migrate to you over other smaller blips, thereby helping to sustain your run.

And obviously when working a split-frequency DX operation, where they say "5 to 10 up", many times you can "see" the station's blip that immediately responds to their call (if the other stations shut up ;)), so you can move to that frequency, or note the trend of their tuning.
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AF5CC

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Re: General History of Amateur HF Receivers, over the past 50 some years...
« Reply #16 on: August 15, 2022, 11:45:05 AM »

They can be useful for pileup busting on CW and SSB to see where the successful "tail ender" that the DX is working is located so can assist you in deciding where to put your next call.

That is true, but I have found dual receive radios to be more useful in this area.

73 John AF5CC
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AE0Q

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Re: General History of Amateur HF Receivers, over the past 50 some years...
« Reply #17 on: August 15, 2022, 08:15:34 PM »

In a DX contest for example, the cluster can show tons of European stations (where the multi are) that propagation denies me from receiving.

You CAN add filters to the DX Cluster you log into, so you only see spots from skimmers in your part of the country, that narrows it down a bit :-)  One example for the CWops CWT.
Set/dx/filter (skimvalid and comment=*cw* or not skimmer) and (spotterstate=[co,nm,wy,ks,mo,ut,wa,or,ca,tx,nv,mt])

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K7JQ

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Re: General History of Amateur HF Receivers, over the past 50 some years...
« Reply #18 on: August 16, 2022, 07:27:28 AM »

In a DX contest for example, the cluster can show tons of European stations (where the multi are) that propagation denies me from receiving.

You CAN add filters to the DX Cluster you log into, so you only see spots from skimmers in your part of the country, that narrows it down a bit :-)  One example for the CWops CWT.
Set/dx/filter (skimvalid and comment=*cw* or not skimmer) and (spotterstate=[co,nm,wy,ks,mo,ut,wa,or,ca,tx,nv,mt])

Yes, “a bit” maybe ;). I did mention in my previous post “despite adjusting the filters”. When condx are favorable to my area for Europeans, I can move up and down the cluster/skimmer list effectively. But with my HOA compromised antennas, when condx are marginal, even the filtered spots still show stations I can’t hear.

A local contester eight miles away with a 75’ tower and multiple beams would be working Eu stations that I’m not hearing at all, or just at the noise level. So, the cluster might work well for him. As propagation shifts, I might start to hear them a couple of hours later. Ya’ gotta here ‘em to work ‘em. But, I decided to not work “assisted” in contests anymore, and just rely on what my radios can actually hear. That’s where the panadapter really helps.

To further answer your question regarding the usefulness of a panadapter, when looking for a place to run CQ’s, it’s a quick way to see “holes” in the band where there’s no activity (and of course to first ask QRL).

73, Bob K7JQ
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