AM QSO party last weekend

After a post from MW1CFN John I got interested in this event. Most radioamateurs never ever use AM mode to make QSOs with. Except those who are collecting old WW2 equipment. A(mplitude) M(odulation) mode was the original way to make phone (voice) QSOs over the air waves till SSB and FM would become more populair after WW2. However there is a dutch AM net most time every sunday morning, most of the participants are using old or homebrew equipment. There are still a lot of AM enthousiasts all over the world...

I was planning to be active saturday late in the afternoon, but as you can read in my previous post I ran into problems with a defective fuse. By the time it was all fixed there was no time left to get on air. So, I attended the AM QSO party sundaymorning. A good test was to receive some AM stations in the dutch AM net. I have to write that the stations with the best signals and excellent modulation were the users of old WW2 equipment. Those old BC669 and GRC9 radios sound really good. I also heard some with Geloso radios, but I liked the modulation from the old radios better.

First QSO was on 20m with CT4RK Carlos from Portugal. Carlos told he had some problems the day before. And from the sound of his modulation I think something was still wrong, though it improved a little along the QSO.

My goal was to work fellow blogger MW1CFN from Wales. We tried on 80m first, but there was no propagation. When I was calling on 40m John told me he could hear my signal but had to change antennas. Anyway, we managed to make a QSO on 40m AM after all....mission accomplished.
John also made a recording from my signal after the QSO.

I was not really impressed by the AM modulation so far. But had a QSO with M0XTK which went a lot better. At least his modulation was very good understandable...

Well, I had a lot of fun with all these AM QSOs. But I didnt have the feel you could have with an old tube radio. The sound is just too clean with all these filtering features. The radio audio setup is for SSB and digital modes. For AM receive you should have your audio a bit wider, as wide as possible I think actually.

Some interesting links if interested:

https://amqsoparty.wixsite.com/mysite
https://www.facebook.com/groups/656582541370211/
https://mw1cfnradio.blogspot.com/2020/01/am-qso-party-day-one.html
https://mw1cfnradio.blogspot.com/2020/01/am-qso-party-day-2.html

List of stations worked:

YO9AYN     20m AM
G0OVU      40m AM
M0XTK      40m AM
MW1CFN   40m AM
PI4SRS      80m AM
CT4RK      20m AM