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by nvy 1004 days ago
Wow. Can you link to the antenna you use?

Could you achieve those distances transmitting with the same antenna, assuming you renewed your license?

3 comments

For listening, you can pretty much just throw some wire up and you'll hear stuff. When I first started, I got an RTL-SDR, and with alligator clips, added some random wire I had to the dipole antenna that came with the RTL-SDR. I was able to hear some FT8 signals from overseas. Helped that I lived in a top-floor apartment, but still :)
You basically just need any sort of wire to receive. FT8 is a very weak signal mode so I wouldn't be surprised if you string up some speaker wire inside and still hear signals.
This is the antenna: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08LVYTL5V

I doubt that I could transmit with this, but I could be wrong. It's not something I've investigated.

It says maximum power 250mW so it looks like you could do really low QRP with it. I do wonder if you'd get a signal out from your apartment though.
Wow! That surprises me, and I probably never would have checked, so thanks. I think of FT8 as deep magic at this point, so it wouldn't surprise me if that's enough to reach pretty far