20m HF packet stations heard 11/3/21

I’ve played with VHF packet quite a bit but never experimented with HF packet. As an experiment I decided to start up my HF radio today and tune to 14.105 LSB with the UZ7HO software packet modem and leave it running during the day to see what I could hear and decode.

Turns out there were a bunch of stations, mostly sending beacons, but I also caught one side of a packet QSO. Here’s a list of the stations/packets I heard during the day:

1:Fm KE0GB-7 To ID [09:33:33R] [+++]
COSCO:KE0GB-7, Colorado Springs Area BPQ Packet Node

1:Fm KB9KC To BEACON [09:41:00R] [–+]
Ken Carterville, IL

1:Fm KI0ID To BEACON Via DRLNOD,N0HI-2 [09:47:06R] [+++]
KI0ID/B

1:Fm KE0GB-1 To MAIL Via KB9KC-7 [10:24:05R] [+++]
Mail for: K8BZ

1:Fm VE3PZ To KB9PVH [11:04:03R] [+++]
is kind of on a high ground and

1:Fm VE3PZ To KB9PVH [11:04:14R] [+++]
I think we are probably equal

1:Fm N0HI-7 To ID Via KB9KC-7 [12:32:35R] [-++]
N0HI-7 LinBPQ Switch on Raspberry Pi4

1:Fm K0RCW To ID Via DRLNOD,N0HI-2,KB9KC [17:25:19R] [++-]
K0RCW Robert’s Packet Station in Lakewood, CO

Common dipole antenna dimensions for Amateur Radio HF bands

When building your own antennas, you can either look up a design or dimensions online or from book, or you can use a common formula. 468/MHz is commonly used to calculate the total length of a wire dipole in feet. I had a few dimensions jotted down for reference, but it’s easy to stick the formula into a spreadsheet and just enter the freqs you’re interested in. For example, here’s a Google Doc with the common HF bands:

I hope I’ve got these right, but if not, drop me a comment below.

Here’s a link direct to the Google Sheet if you’d like to bookmark it: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d3Mmnyzvj8AG1lFPd59RSMJhE9ihbE2M4w5noDzyedo/edit?usp=sharing