by Kevin Strom, WB4AIO

WELL, MY STATION has been too long idle — far too long, since early 2000. But starting last week, WB4AIO is back on the air. Despite the FBI-aided and abetted theft of all my radio equipment, I have been frugally saving my pennies and building a new station (mostly with far-from-new equipment). I’ve been running some low-power tests on 75, 40, and 20 meters using both AM and eSSB with an un-amplified Flex SDR-1000 (running 75 to 100 Watts peak on eSSB and a whopping 18 Watts on AM). It’s a wonderful experience, and especially delightful to make an on-air connection to old friends again. I’ve recently talked to N2IRJ, W1WCR, N2SAG, WA2CYT, WA1HLR, KB1NFS, W1AEX, W4BVT and many others. Thanks for welcoming me back, guys!

I can tell, when the propagation is turbulent or the band is noisy and competitive (as 75 meters practically always is), that exciter power simply isn’t enough — so I’m seeking a good quality linear amplifier to bring my signal up 10 dB or more.

Marty, N2IRJ was kind enough to send a recording he made of me using PowerSDR and a 7.5 kHz bandwidth while we were having an eSSB QSO on 7275 kHz. Take a listen:

WB4AIO as heard at N2IRJ 7275 kHz LSB”]