EI7GL....Blog, scratchpad and links

Quiet times ahead for the Sun...???

2011-06-17T11:04:00.000+01:00

If you have been following the details of the current solar cycle then you'll know that the peak which is supposed to be coming up in 2013 will be pretty low in comparison to other previous peaks. If true then conditions on bands like 6 metres (50 MHz) won't be great...especially for East-West propagation.

Now it seems as if there are signs that the following cycle won't be great either and the sun might be entering a quieter period.

This appeared in a recent article online.........
"For one, there is an east/west river of gas the flows under the surface of the Sun (it can’t be seen directly, but it generates sound waves that travel from it to the surface, revealing its presence). This river comes and goes, but usually forms at mid-latitudes on the Sun and shifts toward the equator as the cycle progresses. As it does so, sunspots form above it. Although the next cycle won’t start for a few years, the river associated with it should already be forming. However, there are no indications it has, making astronomers think the next cycle may be delayed."

The full article can be seen HERE

Australia on 28 MHz this morning...

2011-06-04T10:52:00.000+01:00

This one was a bit of a suprise! I had WSPR running on 28 MHz this morning and I was hearing some signals via Sporadic-E from Germany and Denmark.

Then I heard VK2KRR 3 times...all in the space of about 10 minutes. A quick check shows the distance to be 17,333 kms. If I worked it out correctly, then I think local sunset there was at roughly 06:58 UTC? So, the signals I heard from VK2KRR were about 10-20 minutes after his sunset.

It's likely that the F2 layer to the NW of VK2KRR became tilted after his sunset and turned his 'high' angle signal into a very low angle one.....hence the enhancement. After that it may have gone through several hops or become a chordal hop signal. I have often seen this before but it's interesting to see it displayed so well on screen.

These are the European stations that heard VK2KRR. The last leg of the journey to me was probably via Sporadic-E from central Europe. Notice that I was hearing a station in Denmark earlier and OZ7IT was hearing VK2KRR.

His signal seemed to have hopped over all the stations listening in the UK.

A fishy tale about WSPR on 28 MHz..

2011-06-03T08:56:00.003+01:00

Friday morning 3rd June 2011.......Just started listening for WSPR signals early in the morning. After a few minutes, the trace looked like this.

The obvious horizontal line is a WSPR signal from a French station via Sporadic-E...........but all the little squiggles?

These are from illegal fishing beacons operating at 28 MHz. Basically, they turn on for about 10 seconds......drifting upwards slowly in frequency and then they give out their ID in morse. In this particular case, it just so happens to be 'AC'.

I have heard this one several times before as I had the rig turned on in the background.....but this was the first time that I actually noticed it appearing on the WSPR trace.

As for it's location???

For anyone not using WSPR, have a listen to 28.124.6 MHz on USB and see if you can hear it.

WSPR on 50 MHz...

2011-05-23T18:17:00.001+01:00

Over the last 2 weeks or so, I have used WSPR on 50 MHz and I have heard several stations....mainly Western European countries and a bit of DX in the form of CN8LI in Morocco.

The screenshot above is from 50 Mhz today (23rd May 2011). No WSPR stations heard but you can see the lines above about 5Hz apart. At first, they might just look like some sort of computer interference but these are actually TV carriers. The band was open to Eastern Europe and the TV transmitter was probably located somewhere there. Looking at the DX-Cluster and listening down lower in the band, then it was certainly open to Poland and the Czech Republic at the time.

It also shows the limitations of WSPR on VHF.....band was open yet no WSPR stations heard. Outside of Western Europe and the USA, there is certainly a lack of activity from other areas.

New US Trans-Atlantic 70 MHz beacon...

2011-05-19T10:28:00.002+01:00

I saw this news item last week. A 70 MHz beacon near the East Coast of the USA will be operational this summer and beaming towards Europe. However, as you can see from the map it is operating from Virginia as opposed to the NE of the USA.

Here is part of the statement........As of 2 May, a 4-Meter Band Radio Science E-skip Trans-Atlantic (TA) propagation beacon is QRV from the East Coast of the US. QRG is 70.005 MHz, QTH is FM07fm, CW emissions. ERP is 3kW aimed at 60 degrees true towards Europe. This year’s parameters are identical to the previous 2010 operations but with a new call sign, WE9XUP, for 2011.

The beacon is scheduled to run 24 hours a day until 1 Sept, 2011 but must QRT sooner if there are technical or *any* QRM issues.

Any and all QSL/SWL reports are welcome via email to: WA1ZMS ( at ) ARRL.NET.

As you can see from the map above, the beacon in Virginia is at least one Sporadic-E away from the NE of the USA so it will require multiple hops to get across the Atlantic.

A similar beacon WE9XFT was operational in 2010 and looking at the DX-Cluster, several stations in the NE USA and Canada heard it. As this area is one Sp-E hop from Virginia, this is the most likely area where this beacon will be heard again.

In 2010, CT1HZE in Portugal heard it several times...

CT1HZE 70005.0 WE9XFT/B 539 3xEs FB!!! 2026 04 Jul United States
CT1HZE 70005.0 WE9XFT/B 599 3xEs 2306 02 Jul United States
CT1HZE 70005.0 WE9XFT/B 539 Es wow! tnx Brian 1808 26 Jun United States

I wonder if it was heard further North in 2010??? Considering that SWL stations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and England have heard FM Radio stations from North America before on Band II (88-108 MHz) then it should certainly be possible.

WSPR Timing issues...

2011-05-17T13:02:00.001+01:00

I left WSPR running overnight on 30 metres and when I checked it this morning, there seemed to be very few spots. The colour screen on top was showing several signals but I didn't seem to be decoding anything. I knew that timing is a big issue with WSPR so I checked the time on the PC and it seemed to be out maybe 2-3 seconds compared to the radio-controlled clock that I have in the shack.

I reset the time on the PC and hey presto, new spots appeared! So, I went checking...

These are some of my decodes before I reset the time. Notice the DT column...I had no idea what this was before but it stands for the 'Difference in Time' between you and the station you are hearing. As you can see above, most are roughly -2 seconds out.

As you can see above, when I checked early in the morning around 05:30 UTC, there were signals present but very few decodes except for F5GCD. Once I reset the time on the PC, loads of spots appeared and the 'DT' was less than 1 second.

I know that perhaps conditions improved around sunrise but to go from what looked like good signals in the colour window with no decodes to plenty of decodes after resetting the clock certainly suggests to me that timing was a factor.

It might also explain why sometimes I also see some signals on say 28 MHz but get no decodes.

As suggested in the WSPR forum, I downloaded Dimension4 and installed it.

For a PC running Windows 7, you have it run it as an administrator. Install Programme....In the Start Menu, right click on the programme logo...Select Compatibility...Under Privilege Level, tick the box 'Run this program as an administrator' ........click Apply....then OK

Run the programme and it should now keep your PC time updated.

Looking at the advice on the forum, they seem to suggest that signals need to be within 2-3 seconds. Hopefully, this will stop the problem.

WSPR...Rough guide to getting on the correct frequency

2011-05-14T15:09:00.002+01:00

When it comes to using WSPR, 2 things are crucial......
1) The time on your PC must be accurate
2) You are on the correct frequency

The WSPR band is only 200 Hz wide and you really cannot depend on the frequency readout on your radio to make sure you are on the exact frequency.

One method I use.......and it's a bit 'rough' ;o).....is to stay in the middle of the pack...........
A) Figure out as best you can what frequency you should be on
B) Turn off the uploads to the WSPR website
C) Once you hear someone, see what frequency the WSPR programme on your PC says they are operating on and compare that to others on the WSPR website

As you can see from picture above, on the morning of the 14th of May 2011, 7 stations were hearing CN8LI in Morocco on 28 MHz. 6 of us around the 020 to 030 mark. So by adjusting my rig so that the spots are in this range, I'm probably pretty sure that I am close to the correct frequency.

You might notice that the spots from G8BKE are about 50 Hz higher than the rest of us...i.e. He is probably 50 Hz too low. As a result, he is probably not hearing anyone who is transmitting in the top 25% of the WSPR band.

Considering that there is only one WSPR frequency per band, all you have to do is to note the frequency on your digital readout and use the same one in future.

Radio Astronomy from Cork in Ireland!!

2011-05-09T23:47:00.000+01:00

OK...Not exactly Amateur Radio related but I can see it from my house! The piece below appeared in a local newspaper about a 32 metre dish which happens to be the largest in the country. Instead of leaving it to rust, the dish which is located just north of Midleton in Cork is now going to be utilised for Radio Astronomy.

"IT was destined for the scrapheap, but a rusted and outdated satellite dish will soon be transmitting sounds from the very edges of the known universe. Astronomers will upgrade the 32-metre dish with hi-tech detectors, transforming it into the country’s largest deep space radio telescope and enabling it to "listen" to cosmic signals coming from distant galaxies created soon after the Big Bang. It is hoped to be in operation by June 2011.

Details of the exciting partnership between Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) and the National Space Centre (NSC) Ltd will be announced this morning by Sean Sherlock TD, the Minister of State with responsibility for Research and Innovation. The telescope, located just outside Cork city, will allow astronomers to "listen" to radio waves coming from some of the most mysterious and oldest objects in the universe.

Because of its huge size, the telescope will be able to pick up signals from black holes, pulsars and quasars located billions of light years from Earth — almost at the edge of the observable universe. It will also be able to "image" most astronomical objects such as galaxies, nebulae and even radio emissions from planets.

The telescope will be linked to CIT’s Blackrock Castle Observatory in Cork city, and in turn made available to thousands of school children, making it one of the biggest in Europe used for education and outreach. IT’s head of research, Dr Niall Smith, said: "There is nothing else like it in the country. It’s a pretty special instrument."

The dish, at Elfordstown, near Midleton, was developed in the 1980s as part of a joint venture between the European and American communications industries. It entered service in 1984 with Telecom Éireann, carrying data, voice and television services between Europe and the US until the mid-1990s. But its 32-metre dish was considered too big for today’s commercial uses and it could simply have been left to rust.

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, May 09, 2011"

So a Radio Astronomy dish located 15 kms away...how cool is that! They'll be fine as long as they don't listen on 50 MHz ;o)

WSPR on 30m to California

2011-05-04T10:29:00.001+01:00

One of the best features of using WSPR is that you don't have to be present for it to work ;o)
It's just a case of setting it up late at night, head off to bed and then when you wake up in the morning, you just look at the WSPR website and check out the fancy maps to see what you heard.

I've listened a few nights recently on 30m but last night seems like it was good for California and the west coast of the USA. I heard 4 stations in total....
K9JM.....5w......I was the only European station to hear him.
AF6ZO...5w.....I was one of 4 in Europe to hear him.
KC6KGE.....5w......I was one of 4 in Europe but seemed to be the most consistent
K7LG......1w........I was the only European to hear him. This was the same as back in 2009.

Considering that I am just using a doublet antenna for receive which is just 4 metres above ground, it's not like I have a better antenna than anyone else in Europe. I presume it must be the location........i.e. the North West of Europe.

Listening to QRSS signals on 30m

2011-05-02T20:35:00.002+01:00

QRSS is basically morse that is sent very slowly. QRSS3, the most common type uses dots that are 3 seconds long and dashes that are 9 seconds long. By using very slow cw, you can reduce the bandwidth and when using a suitable programme on your PC, you can see signals on the screen that you cannot hear with your ear.

The programme that I downloaded was Spectran by I2PHD. All you have to do is to create a folder on your PC for it, download the programme into it, run the programme and put the microphone from your PC next to the loudspeaker of your HF radio.

Set the radio to the CW mode and tune to 10.14000 MHz, the 30m QRSS frequency.

In my own case, I set it to 10.14008 Mhz as my rig is a fraction off frequency. On the programme, select MODE....and then PRESET QRSS3. I adjusted the slider on the bottom to 600 Hz as that is my offset on CW.

If you are in Europe and it's daytime, you should see a signal straight away. The signals often use Frequency Shift Keying and you should see the frequency change by a few Hertz.

It's not a fast mode! You have to take your time to recognise the various call signs. As you can from the screenshots above, the received signals are in white while I added in some additional info in Red and Yellow.

The callsigns F6DHI and LA5GOA can be seen. I have no idea what power F6DHI is using but the info that I found for LA5GOA was "active since 13-2-2011. erp 5-15mW in JO29OI" which is pretty impressive as the receive antenna here is just a doublet 4 metres above ground level.

I also managed to see the signal of PA1SDB. He was using almost the same frequency as F6DHI, perhaps as little as 2-3 Hz higher in frequency. His signal can be seen above as the one hidden behind F6DHI's stronger signal. There was another one at the bottom of the screen that never got strong enough to ID.

Back on WSPR again...

2011-04-29T19:05:00.001+01:00

After a long absence, I am back using the digital mode WSPR again on receive. It's a great tool in that you can just leave the rig on one frequency then come back later and see what you have heard. You have the option of uploading what you hear to the WSPR website and a map like the one above can be generated....(Fri afternoon 29th Apr 2011 on 30m).

It's simple to use now that I have it working but there was a lot of messing about initially....downloading the programme again...and then trying to figure out why wasn't it working!

After adjusting microphone levels, ticking the right boxes, etc...it eventually worked. It was great to see the first spot decoded :o) Now all I have to do is rest the microphone on top of the loudspeaker of the HF rig, tune to the right frequency, run the programme and away it goes.

I also have a small 10 inch Netbook PC that I tried last night. No matter what I did with it, all I could see were corrupted callsigns. Even the receive screen on WSPR looked wrong...too many small lines. I tried the internal mic and an external mic...no joy. I have no idea as to why the desktop PC will work fine but the netbook will not.

Anyway, I now hope to use WSPR on 28 MHz for the Summer Sporadic-E season and see what can be heard.

CQ 2m Counties Contest...kind of

2011-04-26T13:38:00.001+01:00

For the first time in about 2 years, I put out a signal on 144 MHz again today. I noticed about a few days ago that the IRTS 2m Counties Contest was on Easter Monday in the afternoon. Despite my best plans, I ended up just putting an old 2m 5/8th mag mount on the roof of the car in the driveway, running out a mains cable for a small power supply and quickly powering up my Yaesu FT290R.....with it's mighty 2.5 watts!

Considering I caught only the last 20 mins of the contest, this is probably not really a fair assessment of the level of activity but it did seem quiet.

A quick initial scan revealed nothing....no 5/9+ signals. Checked the Cork Repeater on R6 (50 kms west)...opened it...RF getting out...aerial must be working in some fashion....back to a careful scan on FM.

Heard EI3GAB in Mallow.....gave him a few calls with my mighty 2.5 watts...no joy. Mallow is about 35kms away and on the other side of the Nagle Mountains (Hills ;o) so the received signal here was pretty weak anyway....about 5/2

Heard EI3FFB up in Co.Tipperary on the other side of the Galtees, maybe around 65 kms or so. Just above the noise on receive so no hope of him hearing me.

I'm pretty sure I heard EI4CF in Co.Galway. I didn't hear any /P at the end so I presume he was at home? If so, that's about 150 kms to the north. While my take off in that direction is very good, I'm still impressed that I heard him on the mag mount.

Down on SSB, I got my only contest contact when I worked Tommy using the club call EI7T from Caher in Co.Tipperary, a distance of roughly 65 kms. Not bad for 2.5 watts!

So that was the contest....20 mins...one contact. Tommy had given me #035 and considering that he may have worked some stations twice (SSB and FM) then I guess that it was quiet enough.

Tried out the Helvick head repeater on R3 (~50 kms) after the contest and met up with Andrew EI3GSB/M and Denis EI8GAB for the first time. With the FT290 on 0.5 watts, I had no problems working that repeater so that's a good sign. I could hear Andrew at times on the input although very weakly driving on the motorway near Caher about 60 kms away...another good sign. So it looks like if I put up any sort of decent aerial for 2m then I should get reasonable coverage.

70 MHz in Cork....
After the repeater contacts, I had a simplex QSO with Denis, EI8GAB on FM. Denis got his call in the time that I was off-air....2009/10. I was interested to hear that he is active on 4m with a converted Taxi PMR radio and there seems to be a few others active in the Cork area as well.

Looking at EI4DIB's blog, there seems to be some activity up in the Louth / North of Dublin area as well so there are at least some small pockets of activity on 70 MHz. Not sure though if anyone from either group has worked the other group yet?

On the local scene, Denis told me that there is a Simplexer in operation. This is like a repeater except that it records your audio and plays it back on the same frequency. It obviously makes for slow contacts but it's better than nothing when you can't hear the other station. It would also seem to be a good way as keeping a bit of activity on the band.

To be investigated!

Project Blue Horizon Transatlantic Balloon...Fri 22nd Apr

2011-04-21T17:39:00.002+01:00

Just came across this.....

Transatlantic Amateur Radio Balloon Launch

(Edit...As of Friday morning, it has launched and is heading WEST! So....not Trans-Atlantic. Press release seems like hype)
The Project Blue Horizon 5 high-altitude transatlantic balloon is scheduled for launch, weather permitting, at 0400 UTC (midnight EDST) Friday, April 22, from Oswego, New York. The weather forecast for launch time calls for clear to partly cloudy conditions.

The Project Blue Horizon team is attempting to break current Amateur Radio high-altitude balloon records for distance (3361.81 miles) and duration (49 hours, 45 minutes). The payload will be carried beneath a 54,000 cubic foot capacity helium-filled balloon cruising between 85,000 and 100,000 feet.

Amateurs worldwide are encouraged to monitor the N2XE CW telemetry beacons at 7.1023 and 10.1466 MHz. The balloon is also equipped with an APRS beacon at 144.39 MHz using the call sign KC2ZJH. Amateurs can send reports via e-mail to PBH15.data@gmail.com.

More information about the program, including the latest projected flight path, is at the Project Blue Horizon website at, http://www.projectbluehorizon.com.

Some info about the 2009 flight on the Soldersmoke blog

Conditions on 28 MHz...23rd March to 6th April 2011

2011-04-16T02:30:00.004+01:00

I have checked the 28 MHz band every day from the 24th of March to the 6th of April 2011. Looking back at the logbook from some time in the future, it might be very easy to get an impression that the bands were brilliant. This post sets out exactly what I heard and worked and I can compare it to say a different point in the current solar cycle.

Some points.....
1) For this period, I was using an old vertical half-wave CB type aerial at about 4 metres above ground level....a pretty modest set-up. The transceiver was a TS690 running 80-100 watts.
2) The solar flux was roughly 100-110. The 28 MHz band was open every day. A few of the days could be described as 'good' with S9 signals and strong enough to be worked on SSB. Most of the days, the signals were weak....less than S5....and this is when CW came into it's own.
3) Most of the stations I worked were with CW. If I was restricted to SSB only, my log would have looked very bare indeed.
4) All signals are F2 related unless otherwise stated.

This is what I heard / worked on 28 MHz over this 2 week period...starting NE and working west...

A) I worked XV2RZ (cw) in Vietnam and VR2UW (cw) in Hong Kong....

I heard HS (Thailand), YB (Indonesia) and western Australia. The furthest I heard and the biggest suprise was the VK8VF beacon near Darwin in Northern Australia.

B) In the Middle East, 7Z1HL (cw) in Saudi Arabia.....

...and A45XR (cw) in Oman were worked while the beacons A47RB and A62ER (UAE) were heard. In South Asia, stations from western India were heard. Further north, several stations in the western part of Asiatic Russia were heard as well as a UN station in Kazakhstan.

C) In eastern Europe, I worked several stations in European Russia and the Ukraine, all on cw. When the band did open up in this direction, the one hop F2 signals were strong. This was especially the case on the 2nd of April when I heard YO (Romania) as well.

D) One of the areas with the most consistent signals was the eastern Med. The only stations I worked were 5B/US5IDX (cw) in Cyprus and 4Z5RT (cw) in Israel although I heard plenty of other stations in 4Z (Israel), 5B4 (Cyprus), JY (Jordan), TA (Turkey), SV9 (Crete), SV5 (Rhodes) and SV (Greece).
From this region, the beacons SV5TEN 28.189 MHz (Rhodes...KM46), 5B4CY on 28.220 MHz (Cyprus...KM64) and 4X6TU/B on 28.200 Mhz (Israel..KM72) seemed to be there almost every day.
These are in the region of 2800 to 4200 kms which for one hop F2 signals would suggest an arrival angle of around 0 to 7 degrees above the horizon.

E) When the F2 skip distance got shorter, the SV3AQR/B beacon on 28.183 MHz (sw Greece...KM07) was heard at roughly 2,800 kms and SV2AHT/B (N.Greece...KN10). Several SV stations were also heard. Sometimes the skip distance got even shorter and IT9EJW/B (Sicily....JM77) and IQ8CZ/B (S.Italy...JM88) were heard. These 2 beacons at roughly 2,500 kms was the shortest skip F2 signals that I heard. That kind of distance for F2 would suggest an arrival angle of about 8 degrees above the horizon.

F) Africa......As expected, North-South propagation was the most consistent and was most likely due to F2 and some Trans-Equitorial Propagation (TEP). In the southern part of Africa, the ZS6DN beacon on 28.200 was often heard as well as several ZS stations. Other beacons heard were Z21ANB in Zimbabwe while 3B8MM in Mauritius in the Indian Ocean was worked on cw and 9J2BO in Zambia was heard.
Further north, I worked the following...5N7M (cw) in Nigeria, D4C (cw) in Cape Verde Islands, TJ3AY (ssb) in Cameroon, 5M2TT (cw) in Liberia, EA8/DL2DXA (cw) and EA8OM (cw) in the Canary Islands and ST2AR (cw) in Sudan.

Also heard were 5H3EE in Tanzania, TR8CA in Gabon and the 5Z4B/B beacon in Kenya.

G) South America.....Again, North-South F2/TEP propagation was consistent. Many PY (Brazil) and LU (Argentina) stations were heard as well as the following beacons....PY4MAB/B (GG68) and LU5FB/B (FF97). CX5BW in Uruguay was also heard while VP8LP in the Falkland Islands was worked on ssb.

(H) West Indies/Carrib....In this region, I worked VP5/W5CW (cw) in the Turks & Caicos Islands while FM5AA and FG4NN were heard. It was an area that I didn't hear too often.

(I) North America......There were a few openings to North America but as they are on a more East/West path, the path was more difficult. The most consistent region heard was the south-eastern USA..i.e. Florida area. Beacons heard in that region were....W3HH/B (Florida...EL89), AC4DJ/B (Florida...EL98), KJ4QYB/B (Alabama...EM63), KB4UPI/B (Alabama...EM64) and W4TIY/B (Georgia...EM73).

Slightly further north, the beacon WA4FC/B in Virginia (FM17) was heard while K1ON in Delaware was worked on cw.

In the NE of the USA, the beacon N1ME/B in Maine was heard several times. This beacon is roughly 4,000 kms from me so it was probably one hop F2 propagation whereas the others were all multi-hop.

The most unusual North-American beacons heard were XE1RCS/B in Mexico (EK09) and WA6MHZ/B in California (DM12). (Note that the first dot seemed to be missing from the WA6MHZ/B beacon. Instead of ' . _ _' , it was ' _ _' i.e. M!! So what I heard was MA6MHZ/B ;o)
Other than the beacons, there was no other indication that the band was open to these areas. Even for the other American beacons, when I could hear them, the level of activity from these areas seemed very low.

(J) Sporadic-E......In this 2 week period, I noticed 2 short Sporadic-E openings into Europe.....one on the 4th of April and one on the 5th. The following beacons were heard....OE3XAC/B in Austria (JN78), OZ7IGY/B in Denmark (JO55), OK0EG/B in the Czech Rep. (JO70), DB0UM/B in Germany (JO73) and SK0CT/B in Sweden (JO89). SP100MSC (Poland) was worked on cw. All were in the 1,400 to 1,800 distance which is typical for Sporadic-E.

Observations & Conclusions....
1) Most of the signals heard and worked were relatively weak, certainly most were less than S5 while many were just above the noise. To get the most out of the band, you have to spend time listening to weak signals and waiting for signals to come out of the noise. In this aspect, it has more in common with say 6 metres (50 MHz) than say the other HF bands like say 20 Metres (14 MHz). I think it would have been very easy for someone to listen on the band for a few minutes and get the impression that there was nothing there.

2) I was suprised to work and hear so much with such a modest antenna, especially VR2UW in Hong Kong, XV2RZ in Vietnam and the beacons in Northern Australia and in California. If I had been using say an indoor antenna like say a loft dipole, I think a lot of the signals would have been too weak to hear or work. Then again, a beam at say 10 metres up would probably have revealed a lot more.

3) No Japanese signals heard. These were common near the peak of the last cycle. So no real NNE Propagation from here. Same with the USA. There were bits but not much in reality. No NW USA....or mid-west...or states like Illinois/Indiana/Ohio, etc.

4) I have a large hill to the South-West of my location yet I was a bit suprised to hear so many of the South-American stations.

5) I often heard those illegal fishing buoys which give out carrier about 10 seconds long followed by a cw ident. I seemed to hear more in the afternoon than morning which might suggest that they are used in the Atlantic? West Africa? Mid ocean? Impossible to tell.

6) Very often, the last signal on the band in the late evening would be coming from EA8 (Canary Islands). It's a pity that there isn't a beacon there on 28 MHz.

7) USA....loads of beacons there...very useful and easy to see what part of the country is open.

8) All of the F2 layer signals were coming in between 0 and 8 degrees above the horizon. The Sporadic-E signals that I heard were between 2 and 5 degrees. As always, if you want to work DX on 10 metres then you need to get your signal down near the horizon.

9) Going on these results, there should be some great conditions on 28 MHz over the next few years as the solar cycle improves.

Greece to South Africa via TEP on 70 MHz...

2011-04-01T23:29:00.000+01:00

I came across this today....the first ever contact between Greece and South Africa on 70 MHz!

As far as I can tell, it happened on the 28th of March 2011 when SV2DCD in KN00LI worked ZS6WAB in KG46RC via Trans-Equatorial Propagation. The distance was just over 7,200 kms as they worked on 70.200 MHz SSB.

SV2DCD was running 70w into a 9 el yagi at 10m agl.

It just goes to show the possibilities of this band.

Finding locator / grid squares...

2011-04-01T16:58:00.000+01:00

This is one of those websites and utilities that I had forgotten about so when I discovered it again, I thought that I must put up a post about it so I won't lose it again!

F6FVY has an excellent website that uses Google maps and a simple interface to find your locator / grid square. You just use the controls to zoom in to where you live...click on your house...and up pops your locator square. There is also a box at the bottom of the page where you can input the locator details and it will show up on the map. It's simple to use and shows exactly what the size of the square is.

An excellent site for anyone with an interest in VHF..........or 10 metre beacons ;o)

Morserunner...a CW contest simulator

2011-03-28T21:26:00.000+01:00

An 18 month absence from the radio hasn't done much for my CW skills. At first, very rusty yet after a few minutes, it starts coming back. I guess it's a bit like learning to ride a bicycle, one you can do it, you never forget.

As well as listening to CW on the various bands, one of the ways to brush up on your CW is to use a contest simulator.

I came across Morserunner a few years back and it's a novel way of listening to morse. It basically simulates operating in a CW contest and you just use the function keys on the PC keyboard to control everything. As it is all off-air, there is no pressure and you can make as many mistakes as you like.

10 metres...Thurs 24th March 2011

2011-03-25T13:14:00.001Z

After the good conditions on 28 MHz yesterday, I tried listening again the next day on the 24th of March. The band was a lot quieter though. No SE Europe or Middle East.

The first signal heard was Z22JE in Zimbabwe at around 11:00 followed soon after by the Z21ANB beacon on 28250.2 MHz.

The band was pretty quiet though. Then I came across WA4FC/B in central Virginia on 28231.1 MHz running 5 watts to a vertical. Other than that beacon, there was no indication that the band was open to North America so I put this spot up on the Dx-Cluster. While the Dx-Cluster gets a fair bit of abuse with lots of rubbish spots, it's invaluable for the likes of 10 metres where a unusual path can open up.

Also heard was ZS6TQ and then VP8LP in the Falkland Islands. The VP8 station seemed nice and loud so out came the microphone from the drawer...plugged it in...and gave him a call......and....no joy :o(
There were just too many stations calling him. So, I just the radio on in the background and about 10 minutes later, his signal seemed to peak and I tried again....and success! :o)

My first contact since July 2009. I have worked Falkland Island before on 10 metres but it was still nice to see that my signal was heard way down in the South Atlantic....even if it was only a 5/3 ;o)

Also heard were ZR1ADI (South Africa) and LU5FC....but the level of activity was still well down on yesterday.

....and finally, I heard 5N7M on cw. Really weak. He was 219 and peaking 319. There was no point in calling since I wouldn't be sure if I would hear my own call coming back.

So again, I left the radio on that frequency.........and about 15 minutes later, the signals got strong enough to try. After a few attempts, 5N7M was in the log....Nigeria on 10m cw :o)

Back on the radio & conditions on 28 Mhz...

2011-03-23T22:43:00.001Z

Turned on the radio again today after a long absence. Looking at my logbook, my last contact was in July 2009! Back then, the talk was of solar minimums and how poor conditions were.

Today, the Solar Flux Index is at 100 and the 28 MHz band was in fine shape. There was plenty of genuine F2 propagation about with signals coming in from SE Europe / Middle East / Africa / South America / SE USA.

Considering I was only listening with an old simple half-wave CB vertical antenna, I was suprised at how strong some of the signals were...especially the beacons running only a few watts.

This is a list of what I heard on 28 Mhz today...
South East Europe...SV3AQR/B (Greece 4w vert), SV5TEN/B (Rhodes), IQ8CZ/B , IT9EJW/B (Sicily 3w), 5B4CY/B (Cyprus) , SV0XCC/9 (Crete), SV2AHT/B
Mid-East...HZ1DG (Saudi Arabia), TA4AU
Africa...EA8CTF , ZS1AX , TJ3FC (Cameroon) , D44AC (Cape Verde Is) , TR8CA (Gabon)
South America...PU2TGK , PU2UEO , LW4EU , YV5DTJ , ZP5DBC
Caribbean...FM4NB (Martinique)
USA...W4TIY/B (Georgia) , KB4UPI/B (Alabama 5w) , KJ4QYB/B (Alabama), W3HH/B (Florida 12w)

Other unusual signals heard were...
1) G0IVZ in Cornwall...just about audible....either weak tropo or F2 back-scatter?
2) Illegal Fishing Buoys.....or at least that's what I think they were as suggested by this IARU piece.
The ones that I noticed were in the 10m beacon band. They transmitted a carrier for a few seconds and then gave a CW id. The ones I noted were...
28191.4 cw ident was 'CT' with a very bad chirp
28225.0 cw ident was 'EI'
28255.0 cw ident was 'DK'
....as for their location???

Climbing Towers...

2010-09-23T23:55:00.001+01:00

This clip has been doing the rounds on YouTube recently.

Not for the faint of heart ;o)

More WSPR spots on 28 MHz...

2010-04-09T12:32:00.006+01:00

An unusual spot this morning.......I heard G8JNJ on WSPR on 28 MHz.

Timestamp	Call	MHz	SNR	Drift	Grid	Pwr	Reporter	RGrid	km	az

2010-04-09 08:06	G8JNJ	28.126037	-18	0	IO90hx	10	EI7GL	IO51tu	495	284

At the time, there doesn't seem to be any other reports.

G8JNJ was running 10 watts and the distance was 495 kms.

Mode of propogation....?

Tropo......10 watts over 500 kms! Very unlikely. Tropo propagation on 10 metres is very poor.

Sporadic-E......guess it's possible, you can't really rule it out.

Meteor Scatter.......my guess is that it was probably meteor scatter. Even though you need a transmission 2 minutes long for WSPR, I have often heard very long bursts on 10 metre beacons. Even checking the trace a few hours later, I can see traces of some signal on exactly the frequency that G8JNJ is supposed to be on.

WSPR & V51 Namibia on 10m

2010-04-08T21:23:00.003+01:00

Back messing about with the radio again. Tried out listening with WSPR on 30m & 60m over the last few days. It's so easy.......just run the software, put the mic from the pc next to the loudspeaker of the HF rig and away you go.

Spotted a few German stations this morning so there was some Sp-E about. Start of the Sporadic-E season!

Around 14:00, I heard V53ARC in Namibia which was a big suprise! So much for a dead band!

I would say the most likely reason was a single F2 hop from V53 to southern Europe and then via a single Sporadic-E hop from there to the UK and Ireland.

WSPR spots below for V53ARC

Timestamp	Call	MHz	SNR	Drift	Grid	Pwr	Reporter	RGrid	km	az
2010-04-08 14:30	V53ARC	28.126160	-22	-1	JG87	1	IW2DZX	JN45kp	7624	354
2010-04-08 14:14	V53ARC	28.126148	-19	0	JG87	1	G3JKV	IO91uf	8373	349
2010-04-08 14:14	V53ARC	28.126147	-2	0	JG87	1	EI7GL	IO51tu	8630	344
2010-04-08 13:56	V53ARC	28.126173	-23	0	JG87	1	IW2DZX	JN45kp	7624	354
2010-04-08 13:40	V53ARC	28.126151	-22	0	JG87	1	G3JKV	IO91uf	8373	349
2010-04-08 13:24	V53ARC	28.126142	-27	0	JG87	1	G3JKV	IO91uf	8373	349

WA1ZMS...the 2m trans-Atlantic beacon???

2009-08-05T16:01:00.004+01:00

This item appeared on the IRTS news last Sunday...

Will this be the year? The 2m WA1ZMS trans-Atlantic beacon The WA1ZMS beacon on 144.285000 MHz is now running a 500 watt transmitter giving 7 kW ERP The beacon is GPS locked and the antenna comprises two 5-element stacked yagis beaming at 60 degrees from IARU locator FM07fm.

I'm sure most people accepted it at face value and assummed that it was a beacon on the Eastern side of the Atlantic beaming accross (60 deg) on 144 MHz to Europe.

However, when you look at the location of it, some serious issues arise...

The distance between the nearest point in Europe (Ireland) and the nearest point in North America (Newfoundland) is generally considered to be around 3,000 kms. The WA1ZMS beacon is in locator square FM07fm which is in the state of Virginia, some 5,480 kms from Ireland. In fact, it's so far away that it's one Sporadic-E hop from Newfoundland alone. To put that into a European context, it's the same as putting a trans-Atlantic beacon in Romania (YO) and asking someone in Newfoundland to listen for it!

Now, I'm sure that it's an excellent beacon and it is very valuable fas a propogation indicator along the Eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada. And I guess, there is always the possibility that it might bridge the gap accross to the Azores (72 deg...12 deg off beam heading of 60 deg)....especially when the Azore High Pressure system moves around when it expands in the Summer/Autumn month. Even at that though, the distance is still about 4,500 kms.

To suggest that it might make it all of the way accross to Europe proper would take a big leap of faith.

Long distance Sporadic-E on 144 MHz...

2009-08-02T14:53:00.006+01:00

This is something I meant to post a while back but never got around to it unil now.

Back on the 3rd of July, there was some excellent Sporadic-E propogation over Europe with some very impressive distances. One of those contacts was between Tom, EI4DQ (IO51wu) and SV9CVY (KM25ka) on the island of Crete, a distance of about 3,213 kms. Anyone that knows about Sporadic-E will know that the usual maximum distance for 1 hop is around 2,300 kms so the above distance is unusual. (On the map above, 2300 kms would be roughly from EI4DQ to roughly the heel of Italy).

Now, there are probably 3 possible explanations for this type of contact...

1) Double hop Sporadic-E as shown above...using clouds #2 and #3

2) Chordal hop where the Sporadic-E clouds may be slightly tilted and the signal goes from cloud to cloud rather than bouncing off the ground in the middle.......i.e. the signal goes directly from cloud #2 to cloud #3.

3) There was an extension at either end or both ends due to tropospheric propogation.

Considering that the MUF does not reach as high as 144 MHz that often, it's remarkable that it should happen in 2 spots at once. Hence, that's why these type of contacts are pretty rare.

Now for a bit of fun ;o)......what happens if we take that 3,213 km contact and plot it from EI4DQ's location in the opposite direction...

In fact, if EI4DQ managed to get a signal to travel that far to the west, it would end up in Newfoundland! To date, no-one has managed to make a contact accross the Atlantic on 144 MHz and it remains the 'holy grail' of VHF propogation. In fact, the IRTS have a special trophy called the Brendan Trophies for the first 2 stations to achieve this special contact.

Now, there's a big difference between the path from EI to SV9 compared to the path from EI to VO (Newfoundland). For one thing, EI to VO is a lot further North and Newfoundland is a lot closer to the magnetic North pole, all factors which seem to reduce the chances of there being suitable Sporadic-E.

It does however raise the question of whether it is possible? Europe to North America direct on 144 MHz.......can it be done???

WSPR after 3 weeks...

2009-08-01T16:39:00.005+01:00

I have been listening on the low power weak signal mode WSPR for about 3 weeks now. For a lot of that time, I have left the receiver on overnight on 30 metres to see what signals I could hear.

A typical morning might show plenty of signals logged from Europe and the East coast of the USA. But there's nearly always one or two signals from the West coast that I have heard and more often than not, I am the only one or one of a few in Europe to have heard their signal. An typical example looks like the one above from K7LG in southern California. As you can see, I am the only European station that heard him that night/morning.

Looking at the great circle path, it becomes obvious that Ireland and Britain are closer than most of the mainland Europe for propogation to the west coast of the USA. As well as 30m, I have seen the same results on 40m and I presume it is the same for 20m.

So, if you are an EI/GI/GM station and are on the air after midnight or in the early hours of the morning, have a listen for those west coast stations.

AMSAT-UK announce a new satellite project...FUNcube

2009-07-27T22:01:00.003+01:00

I came accross this a few days ago. It looks like an interesting satellite with a linear transponder as well (2m/70cms). Here are some details...

"AMSAT-UK has announced a new amateur satellite project – FUNcube – that features a 435 to 145 MHz Linear Transponder for SSB/CW operation.

FUNcube is an educational single cubesat project with the goal of enthusing and educating young people about radio, space, physics and electronics.

The target audience consists of primary and secondary school pupils and FUNcube will feature a 145 MHz telemetry beacon that will provide a strong signal for the pupils to receive.

It is planned to develop a simple receiver board that can be connected to the USB port of a laptop to display telemetry in an interesting way.

The satellite will contain a materials science experiment, from which the school students can receive telemetry data which they can compare to the results they obtained from similar reference experiments in the classroom.

FUNcube is the first cubesat designed to benefit this group and is expected to be the first UK cubesat to reach space.

It is anticipated FUNcube will be launched into a Sun Synchronous Low Earth Orbit about 600-700km above the earth using one of the many launch opportunities that exist for Cubesat missions. In such an orbit the satellite passes over Europe approximately 3 times in the morning, and 3 in the evening, every day, perhaps allowing the morning passes to be used for educational purposes and the evening passes for Amateur Radio communications.

FUNcube will carry a UHF to VHF linear transponder that will have up to 1 watt and which can be used by Radio Amateurs worldwide for SSB and CW communications.
Measuring just 10 * 10 * 10 cm, and with a mass of less than 1kg, it will be the smallest ever satellite to carry a linear transponder and the choice of frequencies will enable Radio Amateurs to use their existing VO-52 or DO-64 station.

A key feature of the satellite is the absence of an On-Board Computer. For reliability and maximum power efficiency, the design has been kept as straight-forward as possible with satellite control being achieved using simple commands. "

ZL on WSPR on 30 Metres...

2009-07-19T13:30:00.004+01:00

Left the rig on overnight on the 18th/19th of July. One of the ususual signals this time was ZL2FT in New Zealand.

Timestamp Call MHz SNR Drift Grid Pwr Reporter RGrid km az

2009-07-19 06:34 ZL2FT 10.140222 -22 0 RF70mb 5 EI7GL IO51tu 18664 10

2009-07-19 06:26 ZL2FT 10.140223 -22 0 RF70mb 5 EI7GL IO51tu 18664 10

2009-07-19 06:16 ZL2FT 10.140223 -21 0 RF70mb 5 EI7GL IO51tu 18664 10

2009-07-19 06:12 ZL2FT 10.140224 -22 0 RF70mb 5 EI7GL IO51tu 18664 10

Looking at the map on the WSPR website, I was the only European station to hear him that morning. Why??

I assume it was a short-path signal over the artic? If so, my take-off in that direction is excellent with the ground to the north here falling away rapidly. Is that the reason? Is it just because I am in the North-West of Europe? Combination of both?

I'm just suprised that I should be the only one in Europe to hear the ZL station when my horizontal antenna is only 4-5 metres above ground, hardly a 'DX' set-up.

18th July...another opening on 50 MHz

2009-07-19T11:25:00.003+01:00

18th July......The summer Sporadic-E season seems to be on the wane a bit with more days on 50 MHz with no openings. The 18th of July was an exception as the band seemed to be open to somewhere most of the day with brief surges in activity.

I worked 20 stations in 15 locator squares over 4 seperate activity periods. Much of the activity seemed to be from Scandanavia and I even managed to pick up 2 new locator squares up there....something that is unusual considering that I have been on 50 MHz for about 18 years ;o)

The most unusual contact was when W3UR in Maryland called me! I had to ask him to repeat his call as I was sure I had made a mistake...but no, it was W3UR in FM19. It's kind of funny to think that W3UR would end up calling someone in Europe on 50 MHz with home made 2 element wire beam in the attic of their house pointing the wrong direction!

It makes me wonder what could I work if I had an antenna for 50 MHz outdoors?? Maybe next year...

WSPR...40m Activity Period - 15th July 2009

2009-07-17T13:39:00.004+01:00

The majority of stations using WSPR seem to mainly use 30 metres. In an attempt to encourage more use of other bands, special activity days are organised every week. For this one, I opted to listen on 40 metres and left the rig on receive from early on the 15th to around 08:00 on the 16th.
Using my very low doublet antenna (~5m agl), several European stations running around 1 to 5 watts were heard, nothing special. One notable exception was DL6NL who was running only 50 mW and was heard for the whole day, even at local noon which is probably a sign that the MUF was pretty low.

The following DX was logged...

VE3ODZ (5w)

WB4KLJ (2w)

KE7A (5w) in Texas...consistent signal for ~4-5 hours both mornings.

PY8ELO (20w)

VK6POP (10w)...heard several times on the evening of the 15th. First heard 16:00...several hours before local sunset & several hours before sunrise in VK.

KE0CO (5w) & W7RDP (5w) in Washington state in the NW USA.

2009-07-16 04:34 KE0CO 7.040085 -26 0 CN87tl 5 EI7GL IO51tu 7317 kms

2009-07-16 04:56 W7RDP 7.040073 -23 0 CN87xo 5 EI7GL IO51tu 7291

2009-07-16 04:34 W7RDP 7.040073 -22 0 CN87xo 5 EI7GL IO51tu 7291

Both stations (3 spots in total) were only heard at my local sunrise which was at 04:33. I was suprised to see that I was the only station in Europe to hear them that morning!

The following morning I noticed something similiar on 30 metres where only 2 European stations heard AC7SM in Las Vegas, Nebraska running 5 watts. GM4YJB had one spot at 03:30 and these were my spots...

2009-07-17 05:26 AC7SM 10.140218 -27 0 DM26ie 5 EI7GL IO51tu 7937 39

2009-07-17 03:22 AC7SM 10.140219 -27 0 DM26ie 5 EI7GL IO51tu 7937 39

2009-07-17 03:12 AC7SM 10.140219 -30 0 DM26ie 5 EI7GL IO51tu 7937 39

This time, the 'sunrise' effect was not so obvious....perhaps it is more pronounced on the lower bands like 40 & 80m?

I would have thought that other European stations with better antenna systems would have heard these US stations as well? These initial results would suggest that location is just as important. I must check again on another few mornings to see if something similiar happens again.

Listening on WSPR...

2009-07-12T17:04:00.007+01:00

I spent the weekend trying out WSPR......'Weak Signal Propogation Reporter'. It's a new type of mode which was only developed in April 2008 and allows users to detect very weak signals with the soundcard on their PC's. I saw this mentioned on the Soldersmoke Blog recently so I downloaded the software.

It basically works as follows.....

1) You tune to a specific frequency on each band. On 30 metres, the most popular band for these kind of signals, you set your rig to 10.138700 MHz on USB.

2) The software listens to the received audio from 1.4 to 1.6 khz. This equates to 10.140100 to 10.140200, a 200 Hz wide section of spectrum.

3) For a basic receive set-up, just put the microphone from your PC next to the loudspeaker of your rig and run the software.

There are a few issues that still need to be resolved. You need to set the time on your PC so that it is accurate to within 1 sec. You also need to find out where 10.138700 MHz is! You can't assume that your rig is accurate. I found that on my rig, I had to set it to 10.138778 MHz.

There is a nice short explanation of WSPR on the G4ILO website.

The main website for WSPR reports is WSPR Net which lists all the WSPR spots and can also display them on a map.

The picture above is a screenshot of the WSPR screen. The horizontal waterfall displayat the top shows the signals heard in the 200 Hz band split up into 1 minute segments. In the data section below it, the 2nd column is how far below the noise floor the signal is. The last 3 columns on the right are callsigns heard, their locator square and their power in dBm (20 dBm=0.1 watts, 27dBm=0.5w, 30dBm=1w, 33dBm=2w, 37dBm=5w, 40dBm=10w).

Most stations seem to be running around 1 to 5 watts and over the space of a day, I was hearing signals from both sides of the Atlantic. The activity level seems a little low so perhaps it is still a mode that is only growing? Still, I was suprised at what was heard with the WSPR software digging out signals buried in the noise. Here is a map of what was heard in 30 minutes on a Sunday afternoon in July. Note that the antenna in use was a low doublet antenna only about 4-5 metres above ground level.

As a mode, WSPR has a lot of potential. Some of the advantages might be....

1) You can automatically see if various propogation paths are open although a lack of global receiving stations might make this difficult?

2) Within minutes of sending out a signal, you can see what type of signal you have at various receiving stations.

3) By using very low power, you should be able to see roughly how you are getting out. Then if you make any major antenna changes, you should be able to get instant feedback on your signal strenght?

For anyone interested in very low power operation, this mode has obvious attractions. I tried messing about with QRSS (slow speed CW.....a dot = 3 seconds!) and I found it difficult to find let alone read the signals. WSPR seems to have a lot more potential.

I can feel myself at the edge of a slippery slope with this one ;o)

6th July 2009...Sp-E opening into Europe

2009-07-10T16:11:00.004+01:00

There was a nice opening on 50 MHz into Europe on the 6th of July. I worked 29 stations in 23 grid/locator squares. It's only when I plotted out the various squares that I noticed the usual oval shaped footprint which is pretty common with Sporadic-E. Most contacts were in the 1200 to 2000 km range.

Two contacts stood out....

1) YO7LCB in KN15OA at 2428 kms. Almost certainly not single hop. Probably double hop or chordal hop Sporadic-E.

2) UT5PI in KN77OM at 3123 kms. Double hop.

Working double hop on 50 MHz is pretty common but it's still nice to do it, especially with an indoor 2 element beam in the attic made from scrap pieces of TV coax ;o)

HF antenna repaired...

2009-06-27T21:11:00.002+01:00

Repaired the HF Doublet antenna today. It had been down for months after getting damaged in the spring gales last March. It's currently only about 3 to 5 metres above ground level but it's better than nothing.

With the 10 metre vertical and the 2 element for 6 metres in the attic, I can now operate and listen on all bands from 3.5 MHz to 50 MHz (80 metres to 6 metres).

26th June 2009...Big opening to NA on 6m

2009-06-27T09:18:00.007+01:00

Big opening on the 26th of June to North America and the Caribbean. Needless to say, with a 2 element beam in the attic pointing east, signals were incredibly weak here.

Opening 26th June 2009...Yellow tracks (50 MHz), Blue tracks (28 MHz)

To put it into context....
1) My take off to the west isn't great so height above local ground has a big impact. With the antenna in the attic, local houses are also in the way.
2) The 2 element has a front to back ratio of about 10-12 dB so signals coming from the west were getting attenuated a lot.
3) The antenna is indoors.....a loss of probably another few dB.

Taken all together, the losses are probably around 15dB when compared to say a 2 element outdoors at the same height pointing west. (15dB is the difference between someone running 5 watts and 150 watts).

In the early part of the evening, I could really hear very little....only German stations from the east via 1 hop Sporadic-E beaming this way towards North America. Eventually, signals improved slightly and I could just about hear FM5AA (2/1) and V29JKV (319). From North America, some of the stations that I heard were VE1YX (4/1), K1TOL (519), N9XG (519) and K4PI (529) among some others. Just to prove the point that the beam has a reasonable front to back, I could hear G and GW stations on tropo from the east (~300 kms) and were much stronger all evening.

Highlight of the day however was the one and only contact I managed to make! I called KY5R in EM64 who was just above the noise level and somehow he managed to hear my 50 watts on cw. Alabama from Ireland on 6 metres with an antenna in the attic pointing the wrong direction.....amazing.

Here is a selection of EI related dx spots from the night...

EI7IX 50208.0 K9UHF en53io53 tnx 0038 27 Jun United States
W1DYJ 50140.0 EI7IX FN42IO53 0013 27 Jun Ireland
N3CR 50140.0 EI7IX 0000 27 Jun Ireland
N5DG-@ 50095.0 EI1IP 2354 26 Jun Ireland
N4GN 50095.0 EI2IP IO61 2354 26 Jun Ireland
N1BAA 50140.0 EI7IX IO53 > FM16 2353 26 Jun Ireland
W3ATO 50140.0 EI7IX FN20IO53 2343 26 Jun Ireland
K8YTO 50095.2 EI2IP IO61<>EN82 2342 26 Jun Ireland
VE3DO-@ 50140.0 EI7IX IO53>EN94 huge e/c pileup 2337 26 Jun Ireland
N2CG 50140.0 EI7IX IO53 59 into NNJ FN20wv 2332 26 Jun Ireland
VA3XJ 50140.0 EI7IX EN82MHIO53 loud in en82 2320 26 Jun Ireland
K1DAT 50051.8 EI0SIX/B 549 >FN42 2248 26 Jun Ireland
EI9FVB 50167.5 KB8U EN71sw, Washtenaw cty MI 2236 26 Jun United States
EI9JF 50089.9 K4BI Jim EM74 2221 26 Jun United States
EI9FVB 50178.1 WD5K EM12nr, Dallas cty TX 2211 26 Jun United States
VE3EN 50150.0 EI0CL tnx ! 2205 26 Jun Ireland
EI9FVB 50208.4 KB8U EN71sw, Washtenaw cty MI 2202 26 Jun United States
EI7GL-@ 50005.3 K1TOL FN44IO51 cq..in the bcn sectio 2202 26 Jun United States
EI9FVB 50150.0 EI9FVB Clg cq dx NA 2155 26 Jun Ireland
EI9FVB 50187.7 K8MD EN82bq, Livingston cty MI 2152 26 Jun United States
EI9FVB 50200.0 N8CJK EN84gg, Iosco cty MI 2148 26 Jun United States
EI9FVB 50128.4 WC2K Clg you here 2125 26 Jun United States
VO1KVT 50167.0 EI3GYB IO53<>GN29LF 2123 26 Jun Ireland
EI9JF 50081.0 AA1ON 579 2122 26 Jun United States
K4YMQ 50146.0 EI2JD EM63IO63 2111 26 Jun Ireland
NZ3M 50205.0 EI4EY 2111 26 Jun Ireland
W5THT 50215.0 EI4EY 2109 26 Jun Ireland
W2YR 50147.0 EI2JD 2105 26 Jun Ireland
W2YR 50205.0 EI4EY 2102 26 Jun Ireland
VE1SKY 50205.0 EI4EY FN74<>IO52 2046 26 Jun Ireland
IK4IDF 50147.0 EI2JD 2031 26 Jun Ireland
EI2IP 50110.0 WP4G cq cw 2008 26 Jun Puerto Rico
EI2IP 50122.0 8R1DB cq still here 2007 26 Jun Guyana
W4UDH-@ 50185.0 EI4EY 55 in EM52 2000 26 Jun Ireland
FM5AA 50120.0 EI9FVB FK94>
EI9FVB 50120.0 FM5AA FK94IO51QV 1957 26 Jun Martinique
EI7GL-@ 50045.4 OX3VHF/B GP60qqIO51 2510 kms 1952 26 Jun Greenland
EI7IX 50045.0 OX3VHF/B 599 over 1 hour 1944 26 Jun Greenland
EI7IX 50104.0 V29JKV fk97io53 up .5kc 1939 26 Jun Antigua & Ba
EI7IX 50104.0 V29JKV cq 539 1913 26 Jun Antigua & Ba
EI2IP 50117.0 TZ6EI Still in most evening 1843 26 Jun Mali
EI7IX 50175.0 WB4SLM em82io53 tnx 1842 26 Jun

New Prediction for Sunspot Cycle 24...

2009-06-26T16:34:00.006+01:00

Reading through some recent e-mails, I came accross this...

NASA Releases New Predictions for Solar Cycle 24......An international panel of experts -- led by the National Oceanic andAtmospheric Administration (NOAA) and sponsored by NASA -- has released a new prediction for the next solar cycle: Solar Cycle 24 will peak in May 2013 with a below-average number of sunspots. "If our prediction is correct, Solar Cycle 24 will have a peak sunspot number of 90, the lowest of any cycle since 1928 when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 78,". This report clarifies a NOAA report from earlier this month that stated that Solar Cycle 24 would bring "90 sunspots per day on average."

Looking at the date, they are predicting the peak to be between 80 and 100 sunspots per month at the peak. So what does this mean? Let's compare it to previous cycles...

It looks as if it will be similiar but slightly lower than the peak of 1968/9 but worse than the last 3 peaks. What does this mean in practical terms?

In reality, near the sunspot maximum, the HF bands (14 MHz to 28 MHz) will be hopping and there will be worldwide dx regardless of how bad it turns out to be. The big issue is what will propogation on 50 MHz be like?

I remember reading before that the peak of 1968 was supposed to be pretty poor for DX on 6 metres with slim pickings via F2. If it turns out as predicted, I'd expect that there will be plenty of F2 type openings North-South from say Europe to Africa and South America. The big problem is will the MUF get high enough to support East-West type openings from say Europe to North America?....or Europe to the Far East? Stations in Southern Europe will probably work loads (EA/CT/I/etc) but what about those above 50 deg North?

Sporadic-E on 144 MHz...

2009-06-24T23:09:00.007+01:00

Saturday, 20th June........In the evening, I noticed that stations in the UK (G/GW) were working EA/CT on 144 MHz on the Dx-cluster. Having no antenna for the band, I sent Alan EI3EBB a text to notify him and went back to 50 MHz.

Not long afterwards, I noticed that EI stations were now working CT/EA on 2m so I decided to have a listen....

I wired up my old Yaesu FT290R.....pulled out the telescopic whip on the front of it......held it up in the air with one hand......while tuning around with the other ;o)

Heard EI3EBB about 5/9 working CT2GUR and what was amazing was that I could hear CT2GUR!!

Got the microphone and plugged it in........called the CT2 station........'Who is EI7 station?'

Called him again..........he got my full call this time and gave me a 5/2 signal report.

CT2 from EI on 144 MHz using 2.5 watts into a telescopic whip on a rig that was indoors! If I had the rig next to a window with a good view to the south then I'd say it was fair enough. But it wasn't! To the south was a concrete wall about 1 metre away and the view out the window is to the west. Imagine what my signal would have been like with any type of outdoor antenna!

Amazing conditions. It must be one of the strangest contacts that I ever had on 144 MHz.

Postscript.......Message from Paulo....
Hi John...I've been watching your blog and noticed in our fabulous contact at 144, that since their conditions FT290 2.5W with whip antenna! Spathe! I register it at the time the contact but I never thought that their conditions were such, my setup at the time 2x17el in. H +800 W + LNA

My new 144 setup: 4x12LFA+1.6K+LNA

Thank you for the wonderful contact...maybe in a next listen sporadic!

73´s de Paulo, CT2GUR

IT9X/b....the musical beacon

2009-06-21T09:25:00.003+01:00

Since I put the 2 element up in the attic, I noticed that sometimes I would hear a series of almost musical tones on 50.057 MHz when the band was open. At first, I thought perhaps it was some commercial /military signal coming from North Africa but over the last few days, it got strong enough to get a positive ID.

Listening from Ireland, there are 2 beacons usually on 50.057 MHz........IQ4AD in JN54 in North Italy which is usually the strongest and IT9X in JM78 near Messina in Italy. From here, IT9X is almost at the maximum possible distance for single hop Sporadic-E. Even when it is almost impossible to read the morse ID, the alternating tones can be heard quite clearly.

June 19th & 20th...More openings on 50 MHz

2009-06-20T17:53:00.007+01:00

The Sporadic-E season is in full swing at the moment with plenty of European signals on the band. I have been using the home brew 2 element yagi in the attic now for about 2 weeks and I'm getting a better idea of what the performance is like.

Signals.........It's certainly not up to the performance of my old 4 element outdoors up at 9 mtrs above ground level but that's to be expected. For such a simple antenna, I'm hearing a lot of signals and it was certainly worthwhile constructing it and fitting it in the attic. In the event that I put up a better outdoor antenna, I think I'll leave the indoor 2 element in place as a back-up.

DX........there were several openings to the west towards the Carribbean. With a fixed beam pointing east, anything from the west was going to get attenuated by about 10 dB anyway so maybe it was no suprise that I heard nothing. I can't say that I'm too bothered anyway because at the moment, my interest in 'chasing' dx on 6 metres is pretty low.

Fri 19th & Sat 20th June 2009..........I was on for both days and there were good openings into Europe.

On the 19th, I caught an opening in the early afternoon working 28 stations in 21 squares. Most were pretty normal contacts. The one exception was YU1ACR in KN13 square at 2430 kms which is around the maximum distance possible for one hop Sp-E.

On the 20th, 50 MHz was open more or less all day. I was on air before the contest started and worked 21 stations in 17 squares. Note the footprint of the contacts....oval shaped with the north-south part narrow and the east-west section stretched. This is a typical footprint for a Sporadic-E opening.

Over the 2 days, I operated on cw all of the time. While the qso rate was slower, I was able to work stations that were pretty weak and there were several that I would have not worked if it had been on ssb. When you are using a decent antenna with 50-100 watts, ssb is fine. However, when you have to compromise (i.e. indoor antenna ;o) then cw comes into it's own.

Later in the evening, the band was wide open and full of EU stations working in the contest. It was obvious it was open to the Carribbean as well but as before, nothing was heard here off the back of the beam.

Back on 50 MHz again...

2009-06-15T23:40:00.005+01:00

Things have been pretty quiet on the radio front recently....mainly due to a lack of interest on my part as much as anything else.

With the start of the Summer Sporadic-E season in May, I found myself listening more and more on 50 MHz but the aerial left a lot to be desired. A 145 MHz 5/8 wave magmount which acts like a loaded quarter wave on 50 MHz might be fine in an emergency but the performance is awful.

I tried tuning the HF doublet and while it was better than the magmount, it was only fair.

At this stage in the season, I decided to put up something fast in the attic and leave the outdoor work to later. My antenna of choice was a 2 element yagi, much the same as my first antenna on 50 MHz way back in 1991.

My choice was based on the following...
a) A modest bit of gain (~4dbd) with a Front to Back ratio of about 10-12 dB.
b) At the apex of the roof, it would be approx 8 metres above ground level.
c) Wide beamwidth....point it east towards Europe and forget about the west.
d) Feed point impedance close to 50 ohms so it is simple to feed with no complex matching arrangement required.
e) Permanent installation. This for me was probably the main consideration. As an indoor antenna, it is protected from the elements and the coax and elements will never corrode or break.

While an external antenna would be a better choice in terms of lower loss and less noise, at least the attic 2 element will always be there to fall back on if needs be.

It got it's first airing on the 11th of June and despite the fact that it is indoors, it seemed to perform fine. Over the space of 3 hours, I worked 54 stations in 45 locator squares. Of particular note were some of the contacts with stations in OH (Finland) at around 2,000 kms. They were probably coming in at a low angle so the 2 element may not be so bad after all.

Putting the contacts into VQLog revealed one contact was a new square for me...JP53. Other interesting contacts were with DF2UU and OH1LEU. According to VQLog, I first worked them back in 1991, a mere 18 years ago!

Also worked was DL5SBA who I worked on 10m back in 1988, a full 21 years ago!

It seems strange how out of 54 contacts, I should work stations that I had my first contact with around 20 years ago.

Sorting out those QSL cards...

2009-05-31T12:09:00.003+01:00

Things have been pretty quiet here on the radio front. The spring gales took their toll and my HF doublet is down at present although it won't take much to get it going again. Otherwise, I have been sorting out my QSL cards. I tried before to sort them out by band but it was just way too awkward. So, I have sorted them out now by country and they're all now neatly filed away. Once thing that became apparent however is the number of German QSL cards. Germany has a large amateur radio population and the distance from Ireland to Germany is almost optimum for Sporadic-E contacts on 10m, 6m and 2m....hence the large number of cards.

I'm not exactly sure how many are in there but there is a 1 Euro coin at the bottom for scale.

I think it's safe to say that I have Germany confirmed by QSL at this stage ;o)

Saker Falcon missing...IRTS News

2009-02-08T13:21:00.004Z

Just came accross this on the IRTS news.......

Missing Saker Falcon. A request has been made by a member of the Public, to try to find a missing Saker Falcon. The Saker Falcon recently went missing in the Dublin area of Inchicore / Ballyfermot. It has been suggested that if anyone can monitor 216.10MHz FM to try to pick up her signal, which is a constant beep to contact Gerard at 086 3640975

What's strange about this......other than the fact it's about a missing bird.....is that 216.1 MHz is right in the middle of Band III TV in Ireland.

A little more digging suggests that the collar may have come from the USA where that frequency seems to be used for tracking.

Channel I on Band III is at 215.25 Mhz. Now it just so happens that Network 2 is broadcast from Mt.Leinster on Ch I. So, considering that 216.1 MHz is right in with the video signals and if this bird heads for the mountains, this tracking collar (probably milliwatts) is going 'head to head' with a transmitter with an ERP of 230 Kilowatts!!

The best chance of hearing that bird is probably if it lands on someone's TV aerial and causes TVI ;o)

Special Event Station...EI100CQD

2009-02-06T18:34:00.002Z

I came accross this video clip on the net. EI100CQD was a special event station that was operational over the weekend of the 23rd to 25th of January 2009. I heard them mentioned on the IRTS news but the station didn't seem to be operational on 80 metres so it was very difficult for any EI stations to hear them.

The video clip shows Tony, EI5EM operating the station EI100CQD and having a contact with Jarda, OK5JM in the Czech Republic.

mmmm......a 3 el yagi for 160m

2009-01-27T17:18:00.006Z

With no antenna for 160m, I had to give the CQWW 160m CW contest a miss last weekend. However, I came accross this gem on the net..........OH8X and their 3 element yagi for 1.8 MHz.

Not only are they using a 3 element on 160m but they have a 5 element yagi for 80 metres above it!!
All of this on a 100 metre high tower....

.........and my favourite....

.......a rail inside the boom for walking on!......at 100 metres above ground level!.........any volunteers??

Up and Running on Logbook of The World

2009-01-25T10:49:00.008Z

Quick recap.......

1) I had updated my VQLog program so that it now contains just over 23,000 contacts. From this, I could generate an ADIF file that Logbook of The World could use.

2) In mid January, I had tried to use to use the LoTW software but I had problems with passwords at the final step when I was trying to 'sign' the ADIF file and generate a TQ8 file for upload.

3) I looked on the LoTW website but could see no obvious answer. So, I sent the ARRL an e-mail with my private e-mail account (gofree) asking for advice.

Current.......

1) After 2 weeks I had no reply to my e-mail. Someone else had also said that they had not received a mail I sent with my private e-mail account. So, I resent the mail to the ARRL on Fri 23rd Jan using my Yahoo mail account.

2) Within 2 hours, I had a reply! The advice was...

Delete any and all TQ5, TQ6 and TQ8 files in your folders.
Open TQSL CERT
Delete any lines with a callsign.
Select FILE > NEW CERT REQUEST
Request a new UNSIGNED certificate for your call EI7GL. Do not use an end date and do not use a password.
Upload the resulting TQ5 to LoTW. Disregard any messages about overlapping certificates or dates.
Stand by for your TQ6.

3) So, I deleted the TQ5 and TQ6 files that had been generated. Ran TQSL CERT again, generated a new TQ5 file (with no password this time!) and uploaded this to the LoTW website. As I had been approved already, I assumed that I would have a reply in a few days.

4) Within a few hours, I had received the TQ6 file back from the ARRL!! I ran this, unlocked my certificate and then proceeded to sign my ADIF file.

5) This time, it went past the stage where I had got stuck before with the password and it began the slow process of generating a TQ8 file from the 23,000+ qsos in the ADIF file.

6) I got a lot of errors, especially with all of the Satellite contacts that I had. It didn't seem to like the format that VQLog was using for Satellite qsos. In fact, as far as I can see, it rejected all of them. Besides the Satellite contacts, it rejected 2 other contacts.....

EA1DDU.....due to "Invalid PROP_MODE (TRD)". VQLog gives the choice of 'Tropo ducting' as a propogation mode. It seems as if LoTW doesn't accept it. It seems strange as on the FAQ on the LoTW website, it make no mention of needing propogation modes.

GD0PLT.....due to "Invalid amateur CALL (GDOPLT)". My first thought was that I had entered the letter 'O' instead of the number zero in the callsign. But no, I had it correct. I have no idea why it was rejected.

7) Eventually the process was completed and I ended up with the required TQ8 file. I logged on to the LoTW website and uploaded the TQ8 file. At first, I got a message saying that it was pending but pretty soon as I was refreshing the page, I could see that the number of qsos were increasing as well as the matches.

8) I left it for a while and after 30 minutes, I had 22,449 uploaded contacts and 1,945 matches. That is about 8.7% . Compared to the QSL rates that others are getting (15-20%), 8.7% might seem a bit low. I would assume that because my contacts are over a span of 20 years, many of the older contacts will never appear on LoTW because the person in question may have gone off the air. The oldest match was for a contact on the 3rd Oct 1986! The newest was for the 13th Jan 2009.

9) So, a quick look at the matches.

These are the number of DXCC countries that LoTW found a match for on each band. Note that this is via LoTW only. There are no physical qsl cards / previous credits in there.

Looking through the LoTW matches and comparing them to my log, I now have these extra countries confirmed....

Band....../...........Countries

6m......1 new country confirmed (PJ7)

10m....3 new countries confirmed (3X, A6 and ZL)

12m....7 new countries confirmed (HL, J6, KG4, KL7, PZ, ST and XZ)

15m....12 new countries confirmed (EY,FP, GI, HK, J7, KL7, PJ2, ST, VP2E, ZC4, ZD8 and ZL)

17m....10 new countries confirmed ( 3B8, 4U1ITU, C31, EA8, PZ, ST, VK9N, VP2M, XZ and ZF)

20m....1 new country confirmed (YV)

30m....6 new countries confirmed (KL7, OY, ST, TF, XZ and ZD8)

40m....3 new countries confirmed (A6, D4 and V4)

80m....1 new country confirmed (D4)

160m..6 new countries confirmed (CT3, GD, GM, GW, LY and OE)

So, in total, that makes 50 'band' countries that I do not have to get physical qsl cards for.

Out of those, I now have 5 DXCC countries which are only confirmed by LoTW on any band (PZ, ST, XZ, J7 and VK9N)...i.e. I do not have physical QSL cards for them.

After messing about with the LoTW website for a while, I eventually found the page to link the LoTW credits with my existing credits. Again, I thought I would have to wait a few days for someone to process this request but it was done within about 1 hour.

My combined record now looks like this....

I have applied for DXCC on 40m, 10m and 6m before so the overall numbers are high for these bands. For example, what the above chart is saying for let's say 10 metres is that my current DXCC credit is 113, I have another 31 credits from LoTW and when I enable them, I will have a total of 144 DXCC on that band. This of course, does not take into account any physical qsl cards that I may have here for additional countries. For bands where I do not have DXCC, like say 20 metres, LoTW brings my DXCC credit from 14 up to 83. So, if I was to apply for a 20 metres DXCC today (100 DXCC minimum required), I would only have to submit 17 extra QSL cards rather than 86.

Overall Conclusion....By using LoTW, I have got 50 new band countries confirmed and it has reduced the need for me to submit physical QSL cards for future DXCC awards. Overall, it was well worth doing and in my opinion, it really is vital that anyone who has a serious interest in the ARRL DXCC award programme should get going on Logbook of The World as soon as possible.

Short Wave Listener QSL cards...

2009-01-23T16:07:00.007Z

Having recently gone through a backlog of incoming QSL cards, I had the usual few SWL (Short Wave Listener) cards in there as well. I came accross one for which I could find no match in the log so I left it to the end.
Got to the end, re-checked VQLog and my paper log....no sign of the station mentioned.

This is the QSL card...

........and here is the back.

Now, the card is a bit unusal. SWL's don't usually send cards for having heard 'cw' contacts. If they have spent that much time listening to and learning morse, most have gone one to get a licence and get on the air themselves.
I knew I had worked PA1SIX before but just not on that particular day.

I was curious....so I used the 'search' function on the DX-cluster.

PA1SIX 50105.0 EI7GL 559 E 1426 29 Dec

So, PA1SIX had spotted me but did not call me. Note the time, 14:26, the exact same time as what was on the qsl card. So, was this SWL just picking callsigns off the cluster and sending them qsl cards???

So I dug a bit more.......

I found this on an AMSAT forum...
Hi all , this is JH3DJX/Yuki . I received SWL card from DO2OTH . The report was the QSO via SO-50 worked with JH5DAH over Japan .How could he hear our QSO at Germany ?I send e-mail to DO2OTH , but no reply . Can anyone explain this mystery ?

Now, SO-50 is in low Earth orbit so it is impossible to hear it (70cms) in Germany when it is over Japan. Again, a quick check on the cluster suggests an answer...

JH3DJX-@ 436800.0 JH5DAH VIA SO-50 SAT (Saudisat-1C) 1211 21 Jan (2003)

There seems to be little doubt this time, DO2OTH (now DL6BT) just picked a contact off the DX-cluster and sent them a qsl card hoping that they would reply.

Q. What is the point in a SWL sending someone a QSL card for a contact they did not hear???

QSL status......19th Jan 2009

2009-01-19T17:39:00.004Z

Now that VQLog is updated, I spent the last few days going through the backlog of incoming QSL cards. Out of the 200 or so cards, there were a few nice ones which confirmed a few new band countries for me. I think the one from Iraq might be the only card I have from that country. Needless to say, the vast majority were from European countries. All QSL cards have now been answered and I'll probably send them to the outgoing buro in a few weeks time.

Next step...

1) Logbook of The World. Nearly got it working but fell at the last step! I was near the end of the process and I had problems with the password that I thought I had supplied. Looks like I'll have to start again and get a new key. At least this time, it should be pretty quick.

Video clip from EI/ON5GS/P in IO55 square...

2009-01-16T16:01:00.004Z

In some previous posts(here & here), I had some information about ON5GS's 144 MHz meteor scatter expedition to IO55 square in Dec 2008. I recently came accross a video clip of his on YouTube. I think the sound of the wind and the snow on the mountains say a lot about the bad weather conditions.

Irish Castles on the Air...24-25th Jan 2009

2009-01-16T14:07:00.004Z

Just came accross this news item.....

Oranmore Castle activation
Members of the Galway VHF Group will be activating Oranmore Castle from 12 mid-day on Saturday the 24th until 4 pm on Sunday the 25th of January.
Activity will be on all bands depending on conditions. The WAI locator square is M32 and the Castle number will be EI/001/C.
This will be the first activation of a castle since the launch of CASHOTA-IRELAND. The Galway VHF Group Club callsign, EI4ALE/P, will be in operation for the duration of this event.
For further information check out their Web site at: www.cashota-ireland.org

(Update Mon 19th Jan 09....Cancelled due to some building work)

Men's World Handball Championship Croatia 2009

2009-01-13T23:09:00.003Z

On the 2nd of January, I worked 9A2009ST thinking he was just a special event station for the new year. Today (13th Jan), I heard a few more 9A2009 stations and checked them out. They are in fact special event stations for the Men's World Handball Championships and there are 7 stations, one in each city.

A special award is available to anyone working 3, 5 or all 7 stations.

Some details....

Award is available to all amateur radio and SWL stations that in the period from 1st January until 1st February 2009 establish certain number of QSOs with special stations from 7 cities in which will be held 21st World Handball Championship for men as follows: Zagreb, Varazdin, Osijek, Porec, Pula, Zadar and Split.

All modes of operation are allowed: CW, SSB, DIGITAL, MIX.

For the award it is necessary to work just one special station in each city on any band.
Special stations from before mentioned cities will operate under following call signs:

ZAGREB – 9A2009ZG, VARAZDIN – 9A2009VZ, OSIJEK – 9A2009OS, POREÈ – 9A2009PO, PULA – 9A2009PU, ZADAR – 9A2009ZD, SPLIT – 9A2009ST

More info can be found on the this website. Judging by the pile-up they had on 80m ssb this evening, it seems to be very popular.

Checking of VQLog finished...

2009-01-13T20:35:00.006Z

I started the long and arduous process of checking my logging program, VQLog against my paper logs back in mid-November 2008. Now 2 months and 23,039 qso's later, I'm finished at last!! At the beginning, it was really slow as I had to enter a lot of old contacts that I had never entered into my old Fastlog logging program. Originally, I had feared the whole process would take about 6 months but in the end, it took 'only' 2. With the exception of a small number of repeater and crossband contacts, I literally put everything into the logging program....towns, counties, Worked All Ireland squares, Worked All Britain squares, US states and so on. From the rare DX contacts to the local contacts accross town on 70 cms. Lots of data that can be used and searched.

And of course, lots of graphs! Here is a breakdown of all my contacts per band.

Some observations....

1) I found perhaps 20 mistakes where I had originally put the incorrect callsign into Fastlog. 20 out of 20,000 is only about 0.1% . Perhaps I missed a few more? but the logging program is now a lot more accurate. One typo was for R1FJL. I had entered the wrong suffix and VQLog recognised it as Russia. Corrected the call and I got one extra band country on 20m. I had entered the wrong date on several contacts....not much use if they end up getting used on Logbook of the World which looks for a date and time match.

2) When I imported all of the 20k or so contacts from Fastlog into VQLog, it did not always recognise the country correctly. An example was the prefix TO which was used in Martinique and Guadeloupe. VQLog had thought they were just French stations. Correcting these gave a few more band countries. Another more obvious one was for GB stations. These are used all over the UK. VQLog presumed that they were all in England but in a lot of cases, they were not. Lesson.....if you are importing data from one logbook into another...(or even data generated by a contest logging program)....you have to check the unusual prefixes to make sure that they are recognised properly. I'm sure that holds true for any logging program.

Next step.....

1) LoTW....I received the password from the ARRL back on the 5th of January. I now have to figure how to use this Logbook of The World. Uploading 23,000 qso's should get me a 'few' matches ;o)

2) QSL's.....I have several hundred cards that need to be checked. I had a quick look already at these and there are some nice DX ones in there. As well as updating VQLog, I will also need to reply to a lot of those cards. Hopefully, I'll be sending off a batch of qsl cards to the outgoing buro at the end of February .

E44M not in the log...

2009-01-10T19:14:00.004Z

I didn't have much luck trying to work these guys in Palestine. It seemed as if most of Europe were calling them.....too many for a low horizontal antenna and 100 watts to get through on the low bands (3.5 to 18 MHz).
Here is a video clip I found. Seems as if they were getting a lot of interference from the lifts in the building they were in.....

BH7H...video clip from 1997

2009-01-07T20:56:00.004Z

A few weeks back, I had a post about the 2007 Scarborough Reef expedition. I came accross a video clip about the 1997 expedition on YouTube. It really shows how small these rocks are.

Recent events...

2009-01-07T19:47:00.005Z

31st Dec 2008.......Back on HF....

Spent the day repairing my old Doublet antenna. 3 years of neglect (.......and running over the feedline with the lawnmower ;o) had taken it's toll. Ran a new lenght of 300 Ohm twin lead cable from the shack to the feed point of the antenna. Replaced 2 other lenghts of cable. Left the antenna that evening at a mere 1.5 metres above ground level and even at that height, I managed to work DL7VPE/P near Berlin on 80m cw. Raised the antenna the next day so that now, it is roughly 5 metres above ground level. Still a bit low but enough for the moment so that I can use 3.5 MHz to 18 MHz. Even at this height, it seemed to work fine on 80m for the IRTS counties contest. Also worked OH0 and ZD8 on 30 metres over the last few days. Getting a bit more height on it should make a big difference.

3rd Jan 2009.....Quadrantids Meteor Shower...

I was on for this one. Plenty of pings and bursts. I must put up a seperate post about it soon.

5th Jan 2009...ARRL Logbook Of The World...

I had posted the documentation back on the 22nd of December to the ARRL. Received my password by e-mail from the ARRL on the 5th of Jan. A wait of only 2 weeks. I hope to be up and running on LOTW by the end of January :o)

6th Jan 2009...EI 6 Metre activity evening...

I had a listen around 21:00 and heard nothing. From what I hear from e-mail correspondance, it would seem that this activity evening is no longer supported. Seem's a pity.

IRTS 80 Metres Counties Contest...1st Jan 2009

2009-01-02T16:20:00.006Z

This was my first time trying out this contest as I had been off the air for the first 3 (2006-2008). I repaired my HF doublet antenna on the 31st of Dec so that I would be ready for the contest on the 1st. I had no real intention in taking part in the contest as such, more just to get on and give away a few points.

My contest...

The contest started at 14:00 and lasted until 17:00.

14:00 to 15:00...I spent the first hour on CW calling CQ Test, worked 19 stations and gave away a few points.

15:00....Time for coffee!! ;o) I spent about 15 minutes listening around. Going from CW to SSB was like changing to a completely different band. On CW, there was hardly any contest activity at this stage. Just some G and European staions in qso mode. On SSB, the contest segment was hopping and all of the EI stations seemed very busy.

15:15 to 16:00....Back on CW calling CQ Test. Worked just 6 stations in 45 minutes with most of my CQ calls going unanswered. By 16:00, the CW part of the contest was well and truely over.

16:00....More coffee!! This CW is thirsty work ;o) The SSB section was still hopping at this stage. I was half thinking about calling it a day but seeing as how busy the band was, I decided to give away a few more points. Time to get the microphone out of the drawer ;o)

16:15 to 16:48...Tuned up and down the SSB part of the band giving away a few points.

16:48 to 17:00...Found a clear frequency and called CQ Contest so that anyone tuning around the band would find me. Worked about 16 stations in the last 12 minutes.

Totals......61 contacts, 25 on CW and 36 on SSB. 18 counties worked.

Overall Impression and thoughts.....

1) An excellent contest. 3 hours is just the right lenght, 80 metres is the right band and it was great to see so many EI stations on the band.

2) Good to see that the IRTS have not introduced that 'Sprint'/ 'QSY' rule like they did for the 2 metre counties contest.

3) After the first hour, the CW section of the contest was more or less over. If anyone is going to try CW, then the first hour is the time to be on that mode.

4) It seems a pity that for those in the Mixed contest, CW contacts only have the same value as SSB. If someone was going to try and win the mixed section, there would be a case for just working 2 to 3 CW contacts and then spend the rest of the contest on SSB to maximize the points. Perhaps if CW contacts had double or triple value, it might make things more interesting. i.e. Do you stay on CW with a lower qso rate but higher value points or do you try SSB with a higher qso rate but lower value points.

5) Looking at the results for the last 3 years, these were the entries...

Section......2006........2007.........2008

SSB............29..............45.............47

Mixed........11...............20............7

It will be interesting to see what the entries for 2009 will be like. Listening to the serial numbers given in the contest, I'm guessing that the SSB numbers will be up while the Mixed entries will be low again.

So overall, a good fun event. I might try and make a serious effort at it next year.

GB3RAL on 28 MHz & the Ursids Meteor Shower

2008-12-27T18:20:00.006Z

On the morning of the 22nd of Dec 2008, I had a listen for meteor bursts from the GB3RAL beacon on 28.215 MHz during the Ursids meteor shower. This shower is supposed to have a number of active 'outburts' sometimes. This year, the forecast for the peak was for 07:30 UTC.

Why GB3RAL??.........I tried listening to other beacons in Europe around the 1,200 km to 1,500 km mark. Some run very low power so the refections are very weak. In addition, this distance is very good when there is any type of Sporadic-E propogation and it can be very hard at times to tell the difference between the Sp-E and meteor scatter. At least with GB3RAL at 490 kms, Sporadic-E is somewhat less likely and reflections for meteor scatter are likely to be stronger although shorter in lenght.

Equipment : As before, Kenwood transceiver on CW with a 500 Hz filter. Antenna in use was an old CB type half wave vertical.

Listening Period.........07:00 to 10:00 UTC on the 22nd of December 2008.

Results.......Plenty of pings and bursts but there was nothing spectacular. I didn't notice any particular sharp peak in activity. At best, it could be described as 'a small' increase in what be heard normally.

For the 3 hours, the level seemed to be much the same.

Between 08:00 and 09:00 UTC, I heard 9 pings and 9 bursts (10 sec x 1, 20 sec x 3, 30 sec x 3, 60 sec x 2).

Between 09:00 and 10:00 UTC, I heard 14 pings and 9 bursts (10 sec x 3, 20 sec x 3, 30 sec x 1, 60 sec x 2).

All signals were pretty weak. Note however that it was not possible to get a positive ID of the GB3RAL beacon as it's keyer is currently faulty. However, there would seem to be nothing else that it could be other than GB3RAL as there is no other beacon listed within meteor scatter range on that frequency.

From my point of view, there did not seem to be any 'outburst' in activity. Looking at the activity level plotted on the Make More Miles on VHF website, it does not seem to show much activity either. On the chart, the Geminids show up very clearly whereas the Ursids look pretty poor.

It looks as if the 2008 Ursid meteor shower was nothing special.

The next shower is the Quadrantids. These are supposed to peak at 13:00 UTC on the 3rd of Jan 2009.

Dec 22nd....Good Tropo conditions on 144 MHz from EI

2008-12-25T09:20:00.006Z

Interesting to see that even at this time of year, 144 MHz can still suprise. On the 22nd of Dec 2008, there was some nice ducting of 144 MHz signals between the North coast of Spain, the West coast of France and the UK and Ireland. While most of the signals were over a marine path, perhaps the duct was somewhat elevated because plenty of 'inland' stations were getting in on the action.

For example, the EI stations in IO52 and IO53 would have hills (~400m) between them and the South coast of EI. The fact they were working so much and the DX signals were in GI as well might suggest the duct was elevated?? I know there are times when we get marine ducting here on the South coast (IO51) to the North of Spain and the DX signals don't seem to get too far North.

No sign on the cluster of any 432 MHz activity. Lack of stations??? or propogation???

The graphic above was from the excellent Make More Miles on VHF website.

Here are some of the 144 MHz reports from the DX-Cluster.

EI3GYB 144300.0 EA1FDI 52 2155 22 Dec

EA1MX 144403.0 EI2WRB/B IO62IG IN73XK 2136 22 Dec

EA1MX-@ 144403.0 EI2WRB/B IO62IG IN73XK 2136 22 Dec

EA2DR 144300.0 EI4GHB now more weak 2125 22 Dec

EI4GHB 144406.0 CT1ART IO52QQIM67 2119 22 Dec (1710 kms)

EI4GHB 144300.0 EA2DR IO52QQIN83MH 2112 22 Dec

EA2DR 144300.0 EI4GHB IO52 2110 22 Dec

EI4GHB 144310.0 F1NUM IO52QQIN88AJ 2041 22 Dec

EI4GHB 144300.0 EA1FDI IO52QQIN53TF 57 2022 22 Dec

EA1BLA 144300.0 EI8IQ 59+ IN53IO62 1947 22 Dec

F0EJW 144330.0 EI8IQ IN78VJIO62SF 57 TNX QSO 1932 22 Dec

EA1BLA 144403.0 EI2WRB 579 IN53IO62 1926 22 Dec

EI4GHB 144310.0 EA1BL IO52QQIN53UM 1908 22 Dec

EA1MX 144290.0 EI4EY IO52QP IN73XK 59 1906 22 Dec

EB5EIB 144300.0 EB3DYS 59 im98ux tr jn11 1858 22 Dec

EI4GHB 144310.0 F1MOZ IO52QQIN93RS 1823 22 Dec

F1NUM 144320.0 EI4GHB IN88AJ<>IN55QQ 1805 22 Dec

F4BWJ 144309.6 EI4GHB IN93MPIO52QQ 53/54 1801 22 Dec

EI4GHB 144310.0 F4BWJ IO52QQIN93MP 1758 22 Dec

EI4GHB 144320.0 F1NVM IO52QQIN88AN 1746 22 Dec

EI4GHB 144280.0 EA1FDI IO52QQIN53TF Still 59+!! 1715 22 Dec

EA1XT 144300.0 EI4GHB IN53(TR)IO52 CQ NO TAKERS 1620 22 Dec

EA1XT 144300.0 EI3GYB IN53(TR)IO53 CQ NO TAKERS 1619 22 Dec

EI4GHB 144300.0 EA1FDI IO52QQIN53TF 1613 22 Dec

EA1FDI 144403.0 EI2WRB 579 beacon io62ig tropo to 1553 22 Dec

EI3GYB 144300.0 EA1FDI 55 1552 22 Dec

EI4GHB 144260.0 EA1FDT IO52QQIN53TF 1520 22 Dec

F6FHP 144300.0 EI4GHB CQ 55 in IN94 1514 22 Dec

EI4GHB 144249.0 F6APE IO52QQIN97QI 1513 22 Dec

EI3GYB 144300.0 EA1XT 55 and rising 1503 22 Dec

EI4GHB 144300.0 EA1XT IO52QQIO53VK 1502 22 Dec

EA1XT 144402.8 EI2WRB IN53VK(TR)IO62IG 559 1458 22 Dec

F5BUU 144290.0 EI4GHB io52qqjn03po 1445 22 Dec

EI4GHB 144290.0 F5BUU IO52QQJN03PO 1439 22 Dec (1250 kms)

EI4GHB 144290.0 F6FHP IO52QQIN94TR 57 1433 22 Dec

F6FHP 144402.8 EI2WRB/B IO62 559 in IN94 1344 22 Dec

EA1FDI 144403.0 EI2WRB 559 beacon 1204 22 Dec

------

F0EJW 144270.0 GI6ATZ IN78VJIO74AJ Rx 55 cq cq 2110 22 Dec

EA2DR 144270.0 GI6ATZ IO74aj 5-7 in IN83 2105 22 Dec

EA2TO 144269.5 GI6ATZ IN83MBIO74AJ tnx qso 73!! 1928 22 Dec (1280 kms)

F0EJW 144270.0 GI6ATZ IN78VJIO74AJ 59 Tnx Qso 1925 22 Dec

EA2RCA 144300.0 GB3NGI/B IN83MBIO65 519 !!! wow !! 1912 22 Dec (1350 kms!!)

EA1BLA 144482.0 GB3NGI/B 599 IN53IO65 1854 22 Dec

GI6ATZ 144290.0 EA1MX IN73XKIO74AJ 1226km 1742 22 Dec

EA1XT 144481.3 GB3NGI in53vk(tr)io65vb 1452 22 Dec

Getting ready for the ARRL's LOTW....Logbook of the World program

2008-12-22T13:02:00.006Z

This post is mainly for my own benefit so that I can keep track of what I have done and what I need to do.

Logbook of the World is the system used by the ARRL in the DXCC program to get electronic confirmation of contacts/qso's. If two stations upload their logs and there is a match for callsigns, date, time (30 minute window I think) and mode then each station gets a credit. There is no need to submit a QSL card to the ARRL to verify the contact if you were applying for a DXCC award.

This has 2 big advantages as far as I can see...
1) It's another method by which you can get some of the rare countries confirmed. Having had countless direct QSL cards not replied to, getting contacts confirmed electronically has obvious attractions.
2) It should/might reduce the number of incoming QSL cards. After all, if someone else works me and needs to have EI confirmed then regular LOTW users won't need to send me a QSL card.

Current status.......22nd Dec 2008
I remember looking at LOTW before but I could not remember when. I had a folder on my PC with files created in March 2005 so it was three and half years ago!
I download the current version of the programme tqsl-111.exe (the version I had was tqsl-110.exe).
Normally, you would run this programme and complete the first step which is to run TQSLCert and create a certificate request. I obviously had done this before as I have the required file (EI7GL.tq5) already in the relevant folder on my PC.

I went to the ARRL LOTW website and uploaded the certificate request. I got the following results....

Certificate request processor result:
Started processing your New Certificate Request.
For call sign: EI7GL
For DXCC Entity: IRELAND (245)
For QSOs not before: 1986-10-03 00:00:00
For QSOs not after:
Your certificate request is accepted and awaiting further processing.
You must mail in (via postal mail) supporting documentation to complete the request.
Details about what to send and where to send it can be found at:
http://www.arrl.org/lotw/
Your certificate request processing is completed.

All non-US radio amateurs are required to send in supporting documentation to obtain a certificate. As luck would have it, buried in amongst all of the packets of QSL cards I found an old envelope with all the required photocopies (passport & EI7GL licence) and I had never posted. Next step is to post it! (Posted letter 22nd Dec 08........Received password by e-mail on 5th Jan 2009)

With the current progress of updating my logbook, I probably won't be in a position to use LOTW until April 2009 at the earliest anyway so there is no mad panic.

Beacons on 28 MHz during the Geminids meteor shower...14th Dec 2008

2008-12-18T11:58:00.007Z

Back in mid November, I tried a few tests listening to the beacon GB3RAL on 28 MHz during the Leonids meteor shower. For the Geminids, I repeated some of the tests but this time, tried listening for some other beacons as well.

Equipment...
Same as the last time....Kenwood transciever on CW, 500 Hz filter. Antenna....old commercial CB type end fed half wave about 4 metres above ground level. I monitored the received audio using the Sprectrum Lab audio analyzer program.

I tried listening for 4 different beacons on 28 MHz......GB3RAL (~500 kms), LA4TEN (~1,200 kms), F5ZWE (~1,300 kms) and DL0IGI (~1,500 kms). I listened at two different times on the 14th of December.....around 01:00 for GB3RAL and LA4TEN and around 09:00 for all 4 beacons.

Listening around 01:00......
GB3RAL.....I received a few bursts from this beacon. Nothing spectacular but it seemed to be there ok. Due to the fact that it has a faulty keyer, I was not able to get a positive ID. Like before, a lot more shows up on the trace than what I could hear by ear.

LA4TEN......This beacon seemed to be very good. It seemed to be nearly always there and at times, it got strong enough so that I could hear the CW by ear and make a positive ID.

Why was the LA4TEN beacon so consistent?

1) My view in that direction is excellent with no obstructions so that may have helped.
2) Is it the fact that 1,200 kms might be a much better distance for meteor scatter. Certainly for GB3RAL at 500 kms, I would expect that more intense meteor bursts might be required (more ionization) and the bursts would be of shorter duration.
3) Perhaps certain directions are better at different times during the shower??
4) Or perhaps it was the power level? LA4TEN is supposed to have an ERP of 250 watts which is very high for a beacon.
5) Of course, there is always the chance that what I heard was actually weak Sporadic-E rather than just meteor scatter propogation. It's seems unlikely at 1am in the morning in December. Considering that the peak of the shower was around this time, it was probably meteor scatter.

Listening around 09:00....
Conditions were worse. I still got a few pings from GB3RAL. I got very little from DL0IGI and F5ZWE. However, LA4TEN seemed as busy as ever! Looking at other sites, the peak was well over at this stage. In addition, the radiant point for the showers in Gemini may have set below the horizon by that time. I wonder though if the LA4 beacon at this stage was Sporadic-E or or not???

Conclusions.......
1) I need to find out what times the radiant point is above the horizon for any future shower and what the likely peak time will be.
2) The results show that meteor scater on 28 MHz is pretty impressive. Everything heard here was with an antenna with no gain.

Useful links......
International Meteor Organisation
G7IZU meteor detection page

Next shower is the Ursids on the 22nd of December.

ARRL 10 Metre Contest...13th/14th December 2008

2008-12-16T15:46:00.009Z

Considering that this is the only band I am really currently active on, I was on during the 2 days of this ARRL contest to see what would pop up. At this stage of the solar cycle, the solar flux level (~70) is way too low to support direct F2 propogation from this far North in Europe (52 deg N). However, some Winter time Sporadic-E came to the rescue and there were short weak openings to F and EA from here. It's amazing that when all that activity is concentrated on one band, every propogation path becomes obvious and is spotted on the DX-Cluster. Most of the signals were weak although one French station did peak at 599+10dB. However overall, most signals were weak and CW was really the only way of working most stations.

Some observations...

1) In total over the 2 days, I worked 7 EA stations, 3 F stations and 1 S5 station. There might have been some openings to Germany as well but either I was missing or it was too weak for me to hear. The band opened up for a while to LA as well with the beacon LA4TEN in JO28 making an appearance for a while. No LA stations were heard though. In terms of DX, V51AS was heard although very weakly.

As you see from the map, the orange areas represent was worked....all Sporadic-E and about 1,000 to 1,800 kms distance. The V51 station was probably a combination of both Sporadic-E and F2 layer propogation. Sporadic-E from here (IO51) to Spain and from there probably by F2 to V51.

2) This year, the contest coincided with the peak of the Geminids meteor shower. I heard plenty of pings from beacons over the weekend and no doubt, a good few contacts made by stations in the contest may have been due to meteor scatter whether they realised it or not!

3) On a personal level, several years off the radio didn't do much for my CW!.........Oooo........very rusty ;o)

4) After I worked the S5 station, I heard Robbie, EI2IP working him. Later that night I noticed that Robbie had put up the following spot on the DX Cluster

EI2IP-@ 28000.0 EI7GL John ur cw tone is not so clear! 1215 14 Dec

So, I turned on a 2nd reciever with no antenna attached and listened to my signal on 5 watts....

di...di...di...dah.....di...di...di...dah........sounds ok........Turned up the power to 50 watts.....

ch...ch...ch...chirp.....ch...ch...ch...chirp.......Oooooo......Not so good!! :o(

It reminded me of when back in the days when the Soviet Union existed and a lot of the stations there were using home made rigs and plenty would have a chirp on cw.

How to fix my problem??? I thought at first it might be too much RF in the shack. I know I cause interference to the loudspeakers of the PC in the shack so I thought that might have something to do with it. Perhaps RF was getting into the power supply or somewhere else.

Connected up my 20 year old home brew 100 watt dummy load and tried it...

ch...ch...ch...chirp.....mmm.....no joy. Then I looked at the power supply. It's a variable power supply going from 0V to 20V with a small analogue meter to show the o/p voltage and current. Looked a bit low.......mmm......checked it with a digital volt meter.....~11 volts!

Turned it up to 13.5 volts and tried again...

di...di...di...dah...success!!...........It turned out that I must have knocked the voltage dial at some stage and the Kenwood transciever didn't like transmitting with a low voltage supply. Not only that but my max power out now has increased from 80 watts to the full 100 watts.

All from a simple spot on the cluster!....Thanks Robbie :o)

5) .....and on a final note, I found myself listening nearly all the time on the CW part of 10 metres for the duration of the contest. I listened to the SSB section for a while, heard some weak signals but to be honest, I never felt inclined to open the drawer, take the microphone out, plug it in to the rig and call someone. I wonder if I was operating just SSB only, would I just get bored of the whole radio thing again???

EI/ON5GS/P in IO55 square QRT???

2008-12-14T13:48:00.009Z

I have been checking how this expedition has been getting on over the last few days and it seemed like he was getting lots of contacts into Europe on 144 MHz via Meteor Scatter. ON5GS seems to have set up near Muckish Mountain which is shown on the map below. The location selected seems to be on the high part of a small road that goes between the mountains. It seems as if the highest point is perhaps 100 metres or so inside IO55 square!! It seems like a good spot though....about 250m asl and no major mountains blocking the horizon to the South-East.

However on Sunday, it seems like the expedition came to a halt when the antennas fell over in the wind. The winds on Sunday morning were from the North-West and this site looks like it might be very exposed in that direction.
Here are some of the comments from ON4KST chat.....

"LATEST NEWS from DXC 2008-12-14 1039 UT: <<<>>>> Heavy storm has blow over his mast. Antennas crashed. Dirk went QRT"
"well too bad for EI/ON5GS/p: I thought Dirk would make it to the end and would not join the list of blown away DXP's in IO55"
"Dirk, ON5GS, was qrv serveral days from his "berlingo" shack with 4x4el vert stacked antennas. At Dec.14 10.39UTC Anton ON6NL reported: EI/ON5GS/P is QRT! Heavy storm destroyed his antenna"

Some details of the Expedition can be found at http://www.on7kei.be/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=244 and on my earlier post.

Is he QRT for good??? ON5GS is supposed to be there until the 20th. Even if all of the antennas were destroyed, there are some radio shops within driving distance so maybe not???

Update.......(18/12/08)

Now QRT. More info on what was worked at http://www.mmmonvhf.de/showblog.php?ca=EI-ON5GS-P

Update...21:00 (14/12/08)
Back in action......but this time in IO65 square.
SP6NVN 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P io65jg jo81cj 1609 km Tnx D 2007 14 Dec
SP2MKO 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P tnx for new loc / vy73 1959 14 Dec
F1DUZ 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P IN97NJ<>IO65 TNX new loc again 1957 14 Dec
DF8IK 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P io65jg-jo30 tnx 1950 14 Dec

Here are some of the other spots from the DX-cluster....(Blue=Tropo)
ON6NL 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P QRT! Storm blow antennas away 1043 14 Dec
G4ZFJ 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P JO01HOIO55XA 55 FSK 0929 14 Dec
F1DUZ 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P WRONG frequ b4 0920 14 Dec
F1DUZ 144352.0 EI/ON5GS/P IN97NJIO55 TNX so 73 0914 14 Dec
DF0WD 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P io55xc>jo42 fsk,fb 20sec burst 0850 14 Dec
I4XCC 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P tnx new square! #543 2248 13 Dec
PE1OPK 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P JO23IO55 thnx new# Good Lu 2223 13 Dec
PA3DOL 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P Many thanks for new # 27/27 C 2148 13 Dec
HA5UK 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P jn97-io55 2061km tnx 2124 13 Dec
DK7DR 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P jn47dpio55 3min tnx 2104 13 Dec
OE3SJA 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P sorry not finish...chaos ! ! ! 2019 13 Dec
OE3SJA 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P in qso only....chaos... 2008 13 Dec
SP6NVN 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P tnx qso 1944 13 Dec
OZ8ZS 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P CR IO55JO55 Tnx # and GL 1937 13 Dec
IZ5ILX 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P JN54<> IO55 TNX QSO !! 1930 13 Dec
EA6VQ 144090.0 EI/ON5GS QRV for you. Tnx 1726 13 Dec
DF6YL 144385.0 EI/ON5PS/P tnx for new# io55jo31gl 1650 13 Dec
OH6PA 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P TNX 4 New # best 940/8 1554 13 Dec
DF4IP 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P TNX FR QSO 1252 13 Dec
DG5AAG-@ 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P tnx qso & new square 1227 13 Dec
DK1VI 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P JN49HHIO55XA 26 TNX QSO 1200 13 Dec
EI5FK-@ 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P IO55XC 52/57 tropo tnx 1128 13 Dec
DF8IK 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P io55-jo30 tnx qso 1104 13 Dec
DF1SO 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P IO55JN48 C 1800/12 tnx 1055 13 Dec
HB9DFG 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P JN37SMIO55XC CR 5dB/560ms 1031 13 Dec
DJ5BV 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P IO55JO30 good refl tnx 1012 13 Dec
DG5CST 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P gd refl. io55/jo60 gl! 0942 13 Dec
PE1GUR 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P tnx random qso IO55<>JO22, 2142 12 Dec
PA1VW 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P Tnk new #, 140/2 2107 12 Dec
SP3IYM 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P new #188 without SMS/chat pwr 1908 12 Dec
OK1TEH 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P CR jo70-io55 #520 tnx! 1845 12 Dec
F5JNX 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P Best 780/4db tnx new # 1836 12 Dec
PA3CEE 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P MS IO55 Tnx loc. #705! 1809 12 Dec
OZ1IEP 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P new loc. 1725 12 Dec
DF2ZC 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P sri typo 1717 12 Dec
DF2ZC 144305.0 EI/ON5GS/P IO55JO30RN tnx #906 1714 12 Dec
OZ1BNN 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P TU fer new grid GL. 1653 12 Dec
DL1RPL-@ 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P tnx MS QSO 73 GL 1440 12 Dec
DL1EAP 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P IO55JO31 C tnx dirk 4new# 1159 12 Dec
SP2MKO 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P tnx for new loc 1048 12 Dec
DG5AAG-@ 144000.0 EI/ON5GS/P 384 or 385 ??? 1031 12 Dec
ON7KEI 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P FSK441 sket elinknode 7125 0917 12 Dec
I2FAK 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P JN45io55 tnx for new# 2049 11 Dec
ON4KHG 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P IO55XAJO10 2037 11 Dec
DF6YL 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P tnx new# jo31io55 2029 11 Dec
DL1SUN 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P norm refl, c, #563 1941 11 Dec
SP6HED 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P JO80ILIO55XA tnx random qs 1921 11 Dec
ES3RF 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P CR ko29IO55. 2011 km 1834 11 Dec
DH4FAJ 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P JN49EXIO55XC 480/d tnx Dir 1818 11 Dec
SP2JYR 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P 1760km with 50W - Tnx Dirk ! 1755 11 Dec
PA1GYS 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P Tnx qso jo22
PA4PS 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P Tnx new# JO33ghIO55 1725 11 Dec
PA3FPQ 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P io55 tnx new #. FB refl. GL! 1657 11 Dec
PA4EME 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P CR JO20WXIO55XA tnx new # 1640 11 Dec
G4PBP 144385.0 EI/ON5GS/P MS from io55xc 1613 11 Dec
G8GXP 144370.0 EI/ON5GS/P IO55IO93 59 450KMS TNX 1610 11 Dec
G4PBP 144370.0 EI/ON5GS/P 5/5-9 tropo in io82wo 1607 11 Dec
SP6NVN 144370.0 EI/ON5GS/P io55xcjo81cj TNX 1601 11 Dec

GB3RAL and the Leonids Meteor Shower...17th Nov 2008

2008-12-09T11:54:00.010Z

This is a post that I have been meaning to put up for a while. Now that the peak of the Geminids meteor shower is coming up next weekend (13th of Dec), now seems like a good time to put it up.

During the morning of the 17th of November which was supposed to be the peak of the Leonids meteor shower, I tried listening for the GB3RAL beacon in England on 28.215 MHz.

Equipment.....Kenwood TS690s tuned to 28.215.1 MHz on CW (500 Hz filter fitted)
Antenna........Half wave 10 metre vertical at 5 metres AGL
Distance......490 kms due East from here (IO91in<->IO51tu)

As well as listening by ear to the received signals, I put the microphone from the PC next to the rig and monitored the signal with the Spectrum Lab Audio Analyzer program.

After a while, I got a few audible pings that showed on the waterfall dislay so I could see that there was something there around 500 Hz.

At 09:24, I recorded what was the start of a long 5 to 6 minute burst. As you can see above, it started suddenly and after a few minutes, it began to slowly fade away. Listening by ear, I could just about hear that there was something there yet it showed up quite clearly on the waterfall display.

From what I could hear, there was no cw. It was just a constant carrier.

However when I looked at the display closer, I could see that the signal was about 7 Hz wide before finally becoming a narrower signal. I can see from beacon lists that the GB3RAL beacon uses FSK....i.e. the carrier moves in frequency to generate the CW rather than turning on and off. I asked the beacon keeper G0MJW about this and he informed me that the keyer on the beacon has failed and a replacement is under construction.

What I heard and saw was like the beacon keyer was still working (i.e. FSK) except that the frequency shift was now a lot lower than it should be (i.e. 7 Hz instead of say 300 Hz).

Q. Was it GB3RAL that I heard? Probably likely but to be honest, until I can get a positive ID, I will never be 100% sure. I might have a listen again during the Geminids and see how it goes.

Notes...
(1) The various other lines shown on the above displays are mainly just interference generated by the PC. Even though I can't hear them, they show up quite clearly on the display.

DX-pedition to IO55 square on 144 MHz...Dec 2008

2008-12-05T11:53:00.009Z

It's strange how you can find information sometimes. Last night, I started out looking at a website for 70 MHz.....found a link for information on transverters on an OZ website...then I spotted some 'most wanted locator squares' maps...and that got me onto a page about upcoming 144 MHz DX-peditions!

The above map shows the locator squares in Ireland. Some of the squares like IO51, IO63 and IO74 have a number of amateurs in them who are pretty active so are not so rare. The other ones are not so easy to catch. The squares on the Western seaboard (IO41-44) are all pretty rare while the square in the most North Western tip of Ireland (IO55) is the rarest of all. By all accounts, it is on the EU Top 10 most wanted list!

Well, it turns out that Dirk, ON5GS is going to activate the square on 144 MHz during the Geminids meteor shower in mid-December. The information from the website reads as follows...

"I will be qrv on 2m during BCC contest in IO55 (top-10 EU most wanted) using EI/ON5GS/P with 4 x 6el DK7ZB and 200w from a citroën berlingo-shack in donegal NW-ireland from 10-20 dec 2008. All MS skeds before and after contest and/or EME skeds during the period in moonset/moonrise are welcome on dirk_reyners_AT_hotmail.com or sms ++32477677005 or 14.345 MHz during operation. I will most possibly be qrv on ON4KST chat and DX-cluster via GPRS so you will find me there for a sked also. Please no skeds during contest. My random freq is 144.384MHz good luck may the rocks be with you (...and with me HI) Dirk Reyners ON5GS."

There is a link on the post for a website in Flemish but you can see that he is obviously doing a lot of work getting ready for the trip.

IO55......When you look at a map, it may not be the easiest of squares to activate.
1) Logistics.....anyone coming from Europe will arrive in the South East/East of the country and will have to drive all the ways to the North West corner....not an easy journey.
2) Trying to find a good location in the square.

As you can see from the map, there are a lot of mountains to the South, South-East and East. Trying to find a spot with a low horizon will be tricky. It will be interesting to see the results.

DXCC Card Checker in EI.......

2008-12-04T14:28:00.004Z

Trawling back through some old IRTS news item's, I came accross this news piece which might be interest to any EI stations who have an interest in the ARRL DXCC awards.

"Dave, EI9FBB, has successfully been appointed a DXCC card checker for EI. Effective immediately, he is able to check and submit applications for ALL ‘ARRL’ awards except 160 metre and deleted countries. Also, any ‘ GI ’stations that wish to forward cards onto him are also welcome to do so. He asks that any perspective candidates adhere to the proper application format,which is clearly listed on the ARRL Web site.

This will certainly take the cost, delay and risk out of mailing your cards overseas for checking. Any enquiries can be forwarded to:“ei9fbb at oceanfree dot net”.

That certainly is a very useful service to have locally. Once I get my logbook updated and start using the Logbook of the World program, then this service is something I must really look into.

The EI 50 MHz Inactivity night....

2008-12-03T10:09:00.005Z

A few weeks back while looking through the VHF section of the IRTS website, I saw a notice about the EI 50 MHz Activity Evening on the 1st Monday evening of every month. I kind of guessed that there might be nobody on but decided anyway to try and get on for it...Mon Dec 1st.

I set up a loaded quarter wave magmount on the roof of a shed during the day. It was hardly ideal in that the roof has a slope and the magmount was over at about a 30 degree angle. However, the VSWR was good and listening to the EI0SIX beacon (180 kms), putting the antenna vertical only increased the signal a bit (319 to 419).

I made a sked with Alan, EI3EBB and by 21:10, we were both on 50.135 MHz. The idea for this activity night started in Kerry so if there was going to be any activity, it might be there. I thought Alan might hear something at his place (~180m ASL) but we heard nothing for the 30 minutes or so we were on for.

I'm not sure if these activity evenings would be of much interest during the Summer months when there is plenty of activity anyway but they seem like a good idea for the long winter evenings when the band is dead.

I wonder though.......is there anyone on for these 50 MHz activity evenings? Anywhere in Ireland..??

Not a spot to be seen....

2008-11-26T12:59:00.004Z

Here is a picture of the Sun today....not a single spotspot to be seen. We are still well and truely at solar minimum.

For the record, the solar flux reading for today is 68. Not really up or down....about the same as before.

In a recent ARRL e-mail, W7TJ wrote..."I have been on the air 44 years, and never have I seen a cycle with such a long extended bottom. Usually the bottom is brief, maybe 6-9 Months of low Sunspot numbers and Solar Flux Values in the Mid 60s. The rise and fall is and has historically been short. Looking back (depending on where one measures) there is a very long and stretched bottom spanning 1 1/2 to 2 years. Graphically instead of a "V" we have a "U" with a long flat bottom."

EI3EBB, Watson 2000 & antenna work...

2008-11-22T13:18:00.012Z

After a slightly shorter absence from the airwaves compared to me, Alan EI3EBB is coming back on again. So after he installed a new Watson 2000 vertical on the chimney, it was time to help out with a bit of tuning.

The EI3EBB 'antenna farm'. Diamond X510 on the left and a Watson 2000 on the right.

The Watson 2000 is a 3 band fibreglass VHF antenna. On 50 MHz, it is a half wave (claimed 0dBd gain), on 144 MHz it is a 2 x 5/8 wave (4dBd claimed) and 432 MHz, it is 4 x 5/8 wave (6.4 dBd). The overall lenght is 2.5 metres so the claim that it has the same gain as a half wave (3 metres) on 50 MHz is a bit optimistic.

Adjusting the 50 MHz radial on the Watson 2000

50 MHz......It has 3 ground planes with one of them adjustable for tuning the antenna to 50 MHz. The initial test showed that the VSWR was lowest up around 51 MHz. After adjusting the radial for maximum lenght, the lowest VSWR was at 50.7 MHz. The VSWR plot was as follows...

The 1:1.5 VSWR bandwidth seems to be around 0.9 MHz and the 1:2 VSWR bandwidth was 1.5 MHz. The final result is that the VSWR for the SSB portion of the band is 1:1.4 to 1.6 which should be ok. It's not that we had much choice when it came to tuning anyway because if we had adjusted it any further, the radial would have fallen out!

144 MHz....The VSWR meter suggested the following...

144.0......144.5......145.0.....145.5........146.0
1.1..........1.3.........1.6.........1.8..........2.0

This suggests that the aerial was slightly too long. Certainly, the VSWR looks a bit high for the FM part of the band where this type would normally be used. As there was no way of adjusting the VSWR on 2 metres, we had to leave it as is. Did adjusting the 6 metre radial affect the VSWR on 2 metres?? We didn't check.

432 MHz....We had no equipment to check the VSWR on this band.

(Note...The VSWR was checked with a pretty cheap meter. A days later, we took some readings with another meter. While there was some differences, the VSWR minimum point stayed the same. There was nothing to suggest that the graph above is not accurate)

Performance......
50 MHz.....It's way too early to say how this aerial performs on 6 metres. The only way we had of testing it was to listen to the EI0SIX beacon and compare it to how I hear it at my place. On paper, we both expected the beacon to be a lot stronger at EI3EBB's location. He is roughly double the height above sea level that I am and he is near the top of the range of hills that I have as my horizon. In addition, he is using an aerial that is resonant and should have nearly the gain of a dipole while I am just listening on a non-resonant CB half wave. If I was hearing the beacon at 319 to 419, I would have expected it to be maybe 539 at EI3EBB's place?

Instead, the beacon is very weak at his house. Why??
Is it the Watson 2000? It's hard to believe it's that bad. Anyway, it seemed to have got a good review here.
Different path???.....I looked at some maps and we have almost the same path (EI3EBB - 168kms - 38 deg / EI7GL - 183 kms - 34 deg). If anything, the path for Alan looks slightly better in that the Knockmealdown mountains look like more of an obstruction for me.
Local obstructions???......EI3EBB has some high ground to the East but at 38 degrees, he should be clear of most of it. Is there some sort of 'plateau' effect?? Is the aerial just in a null spot?

Updated 25th Nov 2008......We did a few tests by going mobile around the roads near EI3EBB's location. We used a loaded quarter wave magmount on the roof of the car and an IC706 parked on 50.052 MHz CW. Now, the tests were a bit subjective as we had ignition noise, noise from the car's electronics and there was some fading on the signal as well. Yet, we still got a good feel for what could be heard.

Area 1) Around EI3EBB's location which is about 500 metres back from the brow of the hill and at ground level, would be around 5 metres lower. The signal was very weak, maybe 319, 419 max.

Area 2) Near the peaks of the local hills (~2-3kms away, 40m higher and 15m higher) to the East and West of EI3EBB. Here the beacon was around 539, nice solid signal and a lot stronger than with the Watson 2000 at EI3EBB's place. (On the hill to the East, the signal did not really get strong until we cleared the trees)

Area 3) The strongest signals by far were along the Northern slopes of the Eastern hill. The signal peaked around 559 here, amazingly strong for a beacon that was around 165 kms away. I have seen this with VHF signals before where the signals on the downward slope of a hill in the direction of which the signals are coming are often stronger than at the top.

Conclusions....??? Still nothing definite. We established that the Knockmealdown mountains (direction of EI0SIX) are visible from the Watson 2000 on the roof. If there is any 'local' high ground in the way, it's not much. We tried just holding the magmount out a skylight on the roof so that it was close to the height of the Watson and doing some tests by comparing it to the Watson with a coax switch. We could hear the beacon a little bit better with the Watson. So, in other words, we were hearing the beacon 'a bit' better on what is supposed to be a resonant half wave antenna than a loaded quarter wave with no ground plane. Perhaps it's a bit early to come to any firm conclusion on the Watson 2000 but for the moment, on 6 metres at least, there is certainly no 'wow' factor.

144 MHz......Compared to the Diamond X510 which is nearby, the Watson is a bit down as expected. The only tests done were listening to local repeaters and they seemed fine.

(Notes....Limerick Repeater on IC706. X510=s'9+10', Watson=s'9').

432 MHz.....No tests done.

So, EI3EBB in IO52ta is back on 6 metres...

Number of EI stations...

2008-11-19T16:14:00.004Z

While I was looking around the Comreg website today, I found some information about the numbers of EI stations. The graph covers the period from 2003 to 2008. It might be worth pointing out to any non-EI visitors to this blog that here in Ireland, we have Radio Experimenters licences rather than Radio Amateur ones.As you can see, a fair drop from 2003 until 2006 and now it has remained steady. Why the drop? I seem to remember something about Comreg removing anyone who had not renewed their licence from their database?

Whatever the reason, there are currently about 1,500 EI stations with a licence. When you consider that the majority will probably not be active at all and another section who will rarely use the radio, there are probably only a few hundred active EI stations out there on the bands.

When you spread out that few hundred accross all of the bands, different days and different times of day, perhaps there are not so many of us after all.

CASHOTA...new Irish award

2008-11-18T12:21:00.007Z

I found this by accident today when I was looking at something else (...the joys of the Internet :o))

Steve, EI5DD has set up a new website about the EI CASHOTA award....Castles And Stately Homes On The Air. The news release on their website is only from last Saturday so I presume it has only just been announced?

Perhaps it is of interest to a limited number of people but it sounds like an activity that would be ideal for a radio club. Anyway, it kicks off on the 1st of Jan 2009 if you are interested.

Echoes from a bygone era...

2008-11-17T13:11:00.005Z

I found this website by accident today. It shows some old QSL cards from EI stations during the 1930's to 1950's. Certainly, working conditions must have been very different back then with most of the equipment home made or ex WW2 military gear in the 50's.

The QSL above is the card from the original EI7M station. It was re-issued some years back to the East Cork Radio Club who now use it in contests.

VQLog...Progress of editing the VQLog logging program

2008-11-14T20:30:00.117Z

This is a scratchpad for me to keep progress on my editing of the VQLog logbook program.

Notes...

a) When I examine all of the QSO's imported from Fastlog, my callsign and locator are missing from each record. So, if I do a search under 'blank' callsign, I get the correct totals for DXCC etc. When I do a search under 'EI7GL', I only get totals based on the entries that I have edited already and put in my call and locator.

First QSO...3rd Oct 1986!

Fri 14th of Nov 2008...Checked up as far as and including...31/10/1987...QSO Nr.00181

Sat 15th of Nov 2008...Checked as far as 20/12/1987...QSO Nr.00296

With 300 QSO's checked up as far as the end of 1987, I have noticed 2 things....

1) DX on 144 MHz SSB. Lots of contacts into ON, PA and F on 2m. It kind of got me thinking about 2m ssb again! But then again, things were different in 1987. There were a lot more stations on 2m ssb then. If I had the same conditions now and was using the same gear, would I work as much?? I kind of doubt it.

2) Loads of 10 metre contacts in November 1987. Most if not all F2 layer. Lots of Europeans, some USA and DX. 1987 was getting close to the peak of that solar cycle. Huge difference in conditions between then and now...November 2008 as we are just passing Solar minimum.

Sun 16th of Nov 2008...Checked up as far as 17/06/1988...QSO Nr.00365

Mostly Summer Sporadic-E contacts around Europe on 10 metres with some DX stuff as well. Two contacts caught my interest...

1) TQ6JUN...a special event station on 10 metres on the 6th of June 1988, 40 years after the D-Day Normandy landings, an event that is now 60 years ago.

2) FY0EK on 10 metres in the Ariane Space Centre in French Guyana.

Mon 17th of Nov 2008...Checked up as far as 23/10/1988...

Finished up until the end of 1988. A few things stood out...

1) Lots of 10m Sporadic-E contacts...especially West Germany!

2) Contacts with what was then the Soviet Union...UR2 (Estonia), UP2 (Lithuania)

3) Contacts with East Germany (Y22)

4) And on the local scene, Charlie EI5FK reading the IRTS on 10 metres every week! Guess there must have been more EI stations on 10m back then.

Tues 18th Nov 2008...Checked up as far as 02/07/1991...

1990....My first 50 MHz contact! Iwas using a home brew Meon transverter with a might 0.25w o/p!! Antenna was a half wave dipole in the attic.

1991...April....I built an amplifier for the Meon. Output power 4 watts....QRO at last!

1991...June...With 4 watts and the attic dipole, I worked loads of Europeans on 50 Mhz via Sporadic-E that month....SM, OH, OE, OZ, DL, LX, ON, I, HB9, PA, G, GM, LA, CU3. What was obvious from the logbook is that this is still a new band with lots of people using transverters and the typical power level was around 10 to 20 watts. At this time, countries like Spain did not have access to the band. Another unusual feature was that all Italian stations were confined to a small segment within the band.

1991...July...Unusual contact...worked EJ7FRL on 2m on the Fastnet Rock Lighthouse off the SW coast of Ireland. Built a 2 element yagi for 50 MHz and put it up outdoors, ~6 metres above ground level. Big improvement in reported signals.

Looking at VQLog, I had done this editing process before but only got as far as July 91.

Wed 19th Nov 2008...Checked up as far as 30/10/1991...

1991...October...Nice aurora on 28/10/91. Worked several stations on 6m ssb even with 4w to a 2 el yagi. Some nice DX contacts on 10m as well, conditions are good.

Thurs 20th Nov 2008...The 1st logbook is now checked....Checked up as far as 16/03/1992.

1992...7th of February. An amazing day for VHF propogation. In the afternoon, I managed to work AI1K, K1TOL & VE1YX with my 4 watts and 2 element beam! Propogation was F2. Later that evening, 2 metres opened up with contacts down to Spain and a tropo duct into PA & DL. It's amazing to think that it is possible to get a contact from Cork to Berlin at 144 MHz with just 25 watts and a small beam.

VQLog notes (mainly for my own use...)

1) When I imported the log from Fastlog to VQLog, all the information transferred ok. However, when I check each individual qso, my call is missing from the callsign field. My locator is missing as well. I need to edit each qso and click on the pull down menu to put in my call and locator.

2) When I put all of the qso data into Fastlog back around 1998?, I left out a lot of contacts like countries on 10m that I had already confirmed. At the time, I just wanted to get a logbook up and running asap. However, when I got qsl cards from some of those 'omitted' contacts, I got a 'not in log' result and I had to go looking for the contact and then adding the contact to Fastlog. This time, as I edit the log, I will put everything in from the paper logs so it an accurate reflection on what I have worked (....with the exception of repeater qso's)

3) I had a lot of info in the comment field in Fastlog that I used to track various things...DIG, WAS, WAB, etc. I need to edit each qso anyway to put this information into the correct field for award tracking.

Friday 21st of November....Checked up as far as 27/03/1992...

1992....3rd of March....Nice tropo opening on 2 metres down to the West coast of France...IN96,97, JN05,06,07. One station in IN96 gave me a 5/5 report when I reduced my power to o.5 watts!

1992...16th of March...My 1st contact on 20 metres....6 years after I got my class A licence! Guess I wasn't too interested in HF back then ;o)

1992...March...Lots of nice DX on 28 MHz. I have VK5EK logged as having a 5/9+15dB signal. Plenty of signals from the West coast of the US as well. I have a note in the log saying that solar flux in mid-April was 130.

Saturday 22nd of November.....Checked up as far as 10/05/1992...

1992...10th of May...Big aurora. Worked loads of G stations with my 4 watts and 2 element on 50 MHz. Also managed to work a G and a GW station on 28 MHz via aurora but the signals were very weak.

Sun 23rd Nov.....Checked up as far as 8/6/1992...

1992...17th of May....Big tropo opening on 2m to G/F/PA/GU/GJ. Tried a test with GP4IPA in Guernsey....he gave me 5/9+20 with 25 watts, 5/9+10 with 3 watts and 5/8 with 0.5 watts.

1992...May...Loads of Sporadic-E on 50 MHz. Managed to work 5B4 in Cyprus on double hop with my 4 watts.

Mon 24th Nov.....Checked up as far as 5/7/1992...

1992...22nd of June...Big Sporadic-E opening on 2 metres. Filled nearly 4 pages in the log......31 DL, 32 SP, 2 OE, 1 HA, 15 YU and 2 OK.

1992...June....I noted one unusual contact where I had worked GW0PLP in Wales on 28 MHz via tropo! We were both using verticals. Distance about 270 kms.

Tues 25th Nov.....Checked up as far as 27/7/1992...

1992...July...Nothing special except I was out portable a lot in West Cork and Kerry on 2 metres....Bear Island, Hungry Hill, Mangerton, Caherconree and IO41 square. Also had my first contact on 70 cms.

Wed 26th Nov.....Checked up as far as 13/9/1992...

Thurs 27th Nov.....Checked up as far as 3/10/1992...

Looking through the log, I have lots of little notes made. One typical note was regarding an antenna test. Not long after I got my licence, I built a little low power attenuator that would go up in 1 dB and 5 dB steps. I know that on 144 MHz, it's not super accurate ;o) but good enough to get a rough idea of what is going on. The test in question involved John, EI6AK. He had a colinear at about 10 feet out in his garden. He made a note of my signal at various power levels. A few days later, he moved the colinear to the roof of his house. By noting the amount of power that I needed to achieve the old signal levels, I estimated that his signals had improved by around 7dB....the equivalent of running 50 watts instead of 10 watts! A worthwhile improvement and proves that height above ground level is really important at VHF frequencies.

Fri 28th Nov...Checked up as far as 24/12/1992...

1992...7th & 8th Oct...Some nice tropo ducting on 144 MHz into Europe. The one contact that stands out is OK1VEI using 25w and a 7 element. An amazing distance for tropo.

1992...Oct...Built a colinear for 70 cms and put it in the attic. Performance is pretty impressive compared to a simple dipole. What becomes obvious is that 432 MHz signals are nearly always weaker than 144 MHz signals and they certainly don't go around hills so well.

1992...Oct...Bought a 2nd hand Diamond X510 dual band vertical and put it up on a 15ft pole. Comparing it to the Slim Jim that I had outdoors, my signal improved to stations in Cork City by around 5 to12 dB. Probably a combination of more gain and less obstructions like the house in the way.

1992...6th Nov...Worked EI5FK on 70 cms. My path to EI5FK's is very difficult as I have some very high local hills in the way. Charlie could hear me When I was using the indoor colinear but nothing with the outdoor Diamond. That's the thing with 70 cms, it can always suprise.

Sat 29th Nov...Checked up as far as 10/06/1993...

1993...5th Feb...More nice tropo on 2m. Some of the best ducting seems to occur in the early hours of the morning. 00:40...work DC3QB who is using an indoor 9 element yagi!! Later the same evening, I work G0NXD who is on the 19th floor of a block of flats in Birmingham using a J-stick on FM. Amazing when you consider that the signal had to come over the mountains in Wales.

1993...7th June...Yet another 70 cms suprise. Worked EI5HG who was near the local car ferry. Nothing unusual in that as it is local. What is suprising is that from that location, which is completely blocked from Cork City, EI5HG managed to work EI3EBB in the city on 70 cms yet they could not work on 2 metres. One possible answer is that the 70 cms signals were bouncing off the large IFI/NET building to the North while the 145 MHz could not??? Without beams, it would be impossible to prove. Still though, it proved that sometimes the 70 cms signal will get through while the 2 metre signal won't. It is supposed to be for this reason, i.e. the ability of the shorter wavelenght signal to bounce off objects, that 70 cms is often supposed to be better in cities than 2 metres.

1993...10th June...Big Sporadic-E opening on 144 MHz. 99 QSOs...10 countries...38 squares.

Sun 30th Nov...Checked up as far as 22/06/1993...

1993...11th June...I had recently built a 70 MHz to 144 MHz transverter. The o/p power on 4 metres was only 0.2 watts. During a QSO with DK2ZF, I tried transmitting on 70.200 MHz with the 0.2 watts and using the 2 element 6 m beam. DK2ZF said he could hear my signal. Amazing...

1993...15th June....Did some tests with EI3EBB (10 kms to the West). Both of us listened to another EI station on 144 MHz about 120 kms to the North. There was a lot of fading on the signals. Sometimes, the signal got weak with both of us at the same time. Other times, it was strong with me and weak at EI3EBB's location and vice versa.

1993...16th June. Worked UZ2FWA (Kaliningradsk) on 10m/6m crossband. i.e. I was transmitting on 50 MHz.

Mon 1st Dec...Checked up as far as 16/07/1993...

I had a bit of a scare with the log. I thought I might have entered some of the QSO times incorrectly, i.e. putting in local Summer time instead of UTC. The way Logbook of the World works is that it looks for a match within a 30 minute window. If my contacts were 1 hour out, then they are useless. After digging out some old QSL cards, I was able to confirm that all the data that I had entered was correct! Phew.....!!

The problem stems from my very first paper logbook. In the space for time, it just says 'Time' and not 'UTC'. So not knowing any better when I started, I logged everything in local time. This was fine in the winter but everything was 1 hour out in the summer. Eventually after a few years, I started keeping everything in UTC. Fine as long as I can remember when I started to use UTC all of the time. The problem is that I have forgotten!

Lesson......always keep your logbook in UTC, not local time!

1993...4th July. Make my 1st 4 metre contact with EI7M/P who is 120 kms away. I was using 0.2 watts from the transverter into a home made 2 element yagi in the attic.

Tues 2nd Dec...Checked up as far as 01/05/1994...

1993...12th August. Worked an Italian and German station on 2m SSB during the Perseids meteor shower. Some of the bursts were 10 seconds long allowing a complete QSO to take place. Also listened on 70 MHz to an expedition station in Scotland. There were some very impressive 10, 20 and even 50 second bursts on this band.

1993...18th August. Nice tropo opening on to the North West coast of France. Worked F1EMX on 70 cms SSB who was using 10 watts and a quarter wave antenna in his attic. I was using 10 watts into the colinear in my attic.....attic to attic on 432 MHz!!

About 3- minutes later, I managed to have a 2m to 23cms crossband QSO with F5PAU. I was holding the 23 cms yagi in my hand and pointing it at the window with the cable going to a scanner. 530 kms on 1296 MHz.....Amazing.

1993...Oct...Some nice conditions on 10 metres. One contact that stands out is with KD2RZ who is using 5 watts from a car in a parking lot in New Jersey.

1994...Feb...Some interesting contacts via the Russian RS-12 satellite....up on 15 metres and down on 10m. The doppler shift was low enough that it was a pleasure to use.....not like the current crop of 432/144 MHz satellites.

1994...Mar...It was from here on that kept using UTC for all Summertime contacts.

Wed 3rd Dec....The 2nd logbook is now checked...Checked up as far as 29/05/1994 (13:33)...

Thurs 4th Dec...Checked up as far as 03/05/1995...

Sat 6th Dec...Checked up as far as 13/05/1995...

Mon 8th Dec...Checked up as far as 05/06/1995...

Tues 9th Dec...Checked up as far as 25/06/1995...

Wed 10th Dec...Checked up as far as 18/07/1995...

Fri 12th Dec...Checked up as far as 29/07/1995...

Going through the logbooks is slow going. I left out loads of contacts when I was first typing up Fastlog. For example if I had one of the more popular countries worked on one of the HF bands, I didn't put any more from those countries into Fastlog. I'm pretty sure that once I finished the initial process of typing up Fastlog, I put in all subsequent contacts after that. This was probably sometime around 1997?

Sun 14th Dec...Checked up as far as 23/09/1995...

Tues 16th Dec...The 3rd logbook is now checked...Checked up as far as 05/04/1996...

Wed 17th Dec...Checked up as far as 22/05/1996...

Thurs 18th Dec...Checked up as far as 13/06/1996... Time for a break from updating! Approx 20% done. At this rate, I won't have the log updated until sometime in mid-April :o(

Sat 20th Dec...Checked up as far as 19/09/1996...

Sun 21st Dec...Checked up as far as 19/06/1997...

Mon 22nd Dec...Checked up as far as 24/07/1997...Judging by the log, I must have entered all of the original entries from the paper log into Fastlog sometime in late 1996 or early 1997. There are a lot fewer contacts omitted now when I am checking. Because of this, I have to enter less data and it is getting easier and faster to check the log.

Tues 23rd Dec...The 4th logbook is now checked...Checked up as far as 30/08/1997...

Wed 24th Dec...Checked up as far as 11/05/1998...

Sat 27th Dec...Checked up as far as 13/08/1998...Just passed the 30% mark.

Sun 28th Dec...Checked up as far as 05/04/1999...

Mon 29th Dec...The 5th logbook is now checked...Checked up as far as 06/07/1999...Just passed the 40% mark. From about late 1998 onwards, I have plenty of contacts for DXCC band countries that were never confirmed. In some cases, I never even sent a QSL card. I'm not sure if it is now too late to get these confirmed or if there are just too many of them??

Tues 30th Dec...Checked up as far as 13/11/1999...

Wed 31st Dec...Checked up as far as 18/03/2000...

Fri 2nd Jan...Checked up as far as 11/04/2000...

Sat 3rd Jan...The 6th logbook is now checked...Checked up as far as 29/06/2000...Just passed the 50% mark!! A lot of the contacts in 2000 consist of pile-ups and contests which are very quick to check and edit. Estimated completion date....early February 2009?? A lot better than the old estimate of mid-April 2009.

Sun 4th Jan...Checked up as far as 29/07/2000...Just passed the 60% mark!!

Due to a head cold, I checked a lot of the log today. At this rate, I would expect to have the log finished and checked by the end of January.

Mon 5th Jan...The 7th logbook is now checked...Checked up as far as 09/09/2000...

Tues 6th Jan...Checked up as far as 08/12/2000...Just passed the 70% mark!!

Wed 7th Jan...The 8th logbook is now checked...Checked up as far as 06/01/2001...

Thurs 8th Jan...Checked up as far as 03/03/2001...

Fri 9th Jan...Checked up as far as 09/06/2001...Just passed the 80% mark!!

Sat 10th Jan...The 9th logbook is now checked...Starting on the last and current logbook...Checked up as far as 15/11/2001...

Sun 11th Jan...Checked as far as 24/12/2001...Just passed the 90% mark!!

Mon 12th Jan...Checked as far as 13/09/2003...

Tues 13th Jan...Finished!! 2 months and 23,029 QSO's later...

(Note to self....Any contacts for 2008 onwards are in VQLog and there is no need to edit them).

DX, DXCC, VQLog and a mountain of QSL cards...

2008-11-14T10:01:00.011Z

Now that I am getting interested again in the radio scene, I took the time to actually read through the September issue of Echo Ireland properly, the Journal of the Irish Radio Transmitters Society. I had been getting it all the time I was QRT but I paid little attention to them. Looking at the current issue, 2 things caught my interest....

1) The HF Happenings column which covered nearly 4 pages. It's written by EI9FBB who appearently is in Cork and it's obvious it takes a fair bit of work to put it together. I'm not sure if after reading it, I'd go try chasing DX again ;o) but a good article all the same.

2) DXCC awards gained by EI stations, especially the single band ones. This was the aspect that I used to be interested in.....getting DXCC on a band rather than just using a combination of bands. Each band has it's own characteristics and the challenge for me was to see if it was possible to get DXCC on each band using just 100 watts.

The chart in the magazine is shown below...

The suprising thing for me is that there are only 13 EI stations with single band DXCC's. Somehow, I thought it would be more.

Anyhow, it got me thinking again about all the stuff that I have worked and never got confirmed. I remember that when I was on the air before, working the DX was sometimes the easiest part. The logistics of trying to track what was worked, what was confirmed and what I needed to get confirmed was a nightmare.

Fastlog.....back in the late 90's, I started using a Logbook program called Fastlog. It was a simple DOS based program but it was excellent. No nonsense and it was great for VHF operation as well as it was easy to keep track of locator squares worked. In fact, if I wasn't interested in getting stuff confirmed, then I'd have probably have stayed with it.

However, the logistics of tracking QSL cards was a nightmare. What to do? Back around that time, the ARRL started up their Logbook of the World program, a novel way of getting contacts confirmed electronically. Just upload your log and it looks for matches with others that have uploaded theirs. Every match is a confirmed contact, no need for QSL's!! The problem was that Fastlog was not a compatible program.

I had around 20,000 contacts logged in Fastlog and I wasn't going to type 20,000 qso's into a new logging program!! So, I chose VQLog. It was very much a VHF orientated logging program and it was able to import the Fastlog program data. The problem however was that although it imported the data ok, I still had to open every contact and edit it to get VQlog to accept it. A lot easier than having to type in all the data but with 20,000 contacts, still a lot of work :o(

Present status.......I had begun this long process before I went off the air. When I run VQLog now, it tells me I have worked 48 countries on 10 metres when I know that the figure should be around 230. So, the current plan is....

1) Learn how to use VQLog again.

2) Get the data on all 20,000 contacts up to date and correct.

3) Get going on Logbook of the World. Upload the log and see what I have confirmed. There are something like 75 million QSo's up there, surely I'll have a few matches!!

QSL's.........Only at that stage will I even start looking at QSL's again. I have unopened packets of QSL's here that I have received over the last few years so there might be a few confirmations in there as well. If you are reading this and you are waiting for a QSL from me, then sorry, but you'll have to wait! I guess that after 4 to 5 years, you have probably given up on that QSL anyway ;o)

eQSL.......This was another thing in the IRTS Journal....a list of DXCC confirmed on eQSL. I checked out the website and appearently, I have 831 eQSL's waiting for me. All I have to do is pay some fee and I can retrieve them. Considering they don't count for DXCC purposes, I really can't see the point. Maybe it might cut down the number of outgoing QSL cards?? Is it still a novelty like it was 4 to 5 years ago or is it now more mainstream? Is everyone using it?? Regardless of whether it is or not, it's way down the list of things to do.

BS7H...how small is too small??

2008-11-10T19:00:00.006Z

I came accross a video clip on YouTube last night showing the BS7H expedition to Scarborough Reef in 2007. You might consider that some of these small DXCC countries might be small islands, some palm trees with a few inhabitants....maybe the odd lizard running around....but...this???

I know it's rare....and I'm sure a lot of people were delighted to get a contact with this station....but it's only a few rocks in the middle of the ocean!! Maybe I'm after getting sceptical after my absence from the DX scene for a few years ;o) ......but to call it a seperate DXCC country seems to be really stretching credibility a bit.

Nov 2008...10 metres in Cork, Ireland (EI)

2008-11-06T18:01:00.032Z

Now that I have a reasonable aerial again for 10 metres, I am going to record my observations for the month....

Solar Flux figures (Red line) for May 2008 to Nov 2008. More or less at or just below 70.

Solar Flux figures....
As of the start of November, we are just coming out of the sunspot minimum and conditions are very poor. Probably not the best time to get going on 10 metres again ;o)
The solar flux at the start of the month is around 69 which is very low. Direct F2 propogation would seem to be unlikely at the moment.

Reports........
Tues 4th November 2008.....
Nothing at all heard on 10 metres. Listening to 11 metres, I heard some weak signals from North Italy and Spain. This was probably weak Sporadic-E, unusual for this time of year.
Wed 5th November 2008.....
Around mid-day, there was a weak Sporadic-E opening on 10 metres. I heard...
OK0EG on 28.282.46 MHz (1,690 kms). Signal about 419 (OK0EG beacon ten watts)(OK Beacon Website = 28,2825. OK0EG, nr Hradec Kralove, LOC JO70vf, ASL 240m, Ant Dipole omni, ERP 10w)
DL0IGI on 28.205.13 MHz (1,460 kms). Signal about 419. (DL0IGI JN57mt BEACON PWR 48W). The website suggests that it was 150 watts but the DX cluster confirms that I heard it ok.
I1M on 28.180.50 MHz (1,490 kms). This one was very weak, about 319. Nearest town = Bordighera. Locator = JN33UT. 5 watts to a 5/8 GP???
On 11 metres, weak German and later Spanish CB stations were heard. All signals heard were typical of single hop Sporadic-E.
Thursday 6th November 2008........
Very quiet today. Nothing at all on 10 metres. Heard a very weak Spanish station on 11 metres. Most likely weak Sporadic-E.
Friday 7th November 2008........
Another very quiet day. Nothing at all heard on 10 metres. On 27 MHz around noon, there were a few weak stations. One from Germany, one from France and one Spanish. There was very little activity and very little was heard at any one time. It was almost as if there was weak Sporadic-E conditions and only occasionally, it would get strong enough to allow propogation. Almost as if the footprint was very small and it would change very fast.
Saturday 8th November 2008.......
There seemed to be a good bit more activity today. Even the DX cluster had loads of spots. When I first checked, 10 metres was dead yet there were signals on 11 metres. As usual, it is very difficult to identify where these CB stations were coming from but they sounded Italian and Spanish. A CB station from Poland was also heard. Most of the signals were pretty weak, s '1' to '2'. The strongest station heard was s '5' but that was exceptional.Eventually, 10 metres opened up but the signal were a lot weaker than those on the CB band. I heard a ZS6 in Johannesburg but at best, he was 3/1. On the CW portion of the band, there was a OK/OM contest on as I heard CT1JLZ (max 419) and 7X0RY (max 419). An OK station was heard as well calling one of these stations.All of these signals were probably Sporadic-E although the ZS station was probably a combination of Sporadic-E for the first hop to the South and then F2 after that. Listening for the last few days, the band seems to open around mid-day. With the Summer Sporadic-E, it often seemed to open in the early morning or evening as well.
Sunday 9th November 2008.......
It was very poor today. Even though I could not listen at midday, both 10 and 11 metres sounded completely dead. Even the DX cluster had very few spots, especially from the UK or Northern Europe.
Monday 10th November 2008......
Nothing on 10 metres today, even the cluster seemed quiet. Down on 27 MHz, there seemed to be the typical weak signals around midday.....Italy, France? and Spain. The guy in Italy was running 400 watts!! Crazy power for what is supposed to be 'Citizen Band' radio :o( Anyway, even with his 400 watts, he was pretty weak so the band was just barely open. No big signals...just a few 3/1 to 4/1 signals.
Tuesday 11th Novenber 2008......
Today turned out to be pretty reasonable on the radio. Around 10:30am, I had a look around the CB band and there was a strong signal from someone near Paris in France, Sporadic-E without a doubt. Checked the Dxcluster...not much on 10 metres. Tuned around 28.2 MHz and starting hearing beacons...open at last!
Beacons....I heard the OE3XAC beacon (JN78sb - 1750 kms) on 28.188.15 MHz, DL0IGI beacon (JN57mt - 1460 kms) on 28.205.19 MHz and the DM0ING beacon (JN49ax - 1170 kms). All of these beacons are more or less due East (95 deg) from here. Then the band began to open up to the South-East. Next signal heard was the F5ZWE beacon (JN02tw - 1240 kms) on 28.242.9 MHz. It is a very distinctive beacon with it's slow cw and pips between messages. This turned out to be the most consistent beacon of the day making an appearance on and off for around 2 hours. Next signal heard was the DK0TEN beacon (JN47nt - 1330 kms) on 28.258.03 MHz. This was just after 11am and that was the last German signal that I heard for the day. Just as I was tuning up out of the beacon band, I came accross 2 QRSS or very slow speed beacons. The first one was I1YRB (JN33sf - 1530 kms) on 28.322.19 MHz, weak but audible when it gave it's ID at normal speeds. Almost on the same frequency (28.321.95 MHz), there was another QRSS beacon but because it was so weak and because the other beacon was so close in frequency, it was impossible to identify it. As far as I can tell....all I got were "iv....jn55v....qrss....3".
SSB......so on up to the SSB part of the band. F4FAZ was there with a big 5/9 signal from a location to the East of Marseilles. That was it...one big signal! Either no one was on or the footprint of the Sporadic-E propogation was small?
Beacons....Back down to check the beacons. Heard the EA4Q beacon (IN80wc - 1400 kms) on 28.263.0 Mhz near Madrid. Heard the F5ZUU beacon (JN24il - 1270 kms) on 28.241.62 MHz with only 5 watts from the South East of France.
DX....time to look around the cw portion of the band. Came accross a signal on 28.024 MHz....weak cw but the transmissions were very short...like a DX or contest station would be. Call sounded unusual so I knew it must be different....listened 2 to 3 times before I got the call 100%....7Q7BP in Malawi, Southern Africa!!...somewhere in the region of 8500 kms!! Even though he is not too strong, I give him a call with 100 watts...get him first call...exchange reports...7Q7 in the log!! My 1st contact on 10 metres in about 5 years ;o)
Tune around again...hear F5JLH on cw. Keep tuning...another weak cw signal...sounds unusual again and it's long! Listen a few times again to make sure....3B8DB in Mauritius in the Indian Ocean!! Give him a call...get back 'EI7??'...try again...gets it, exchange reports and 3B8DB is in the log! So maybe this CB half wave isn't so bad after all? Certainly, in the direction of 7Q7 and 3B8, the antenna is not clearing the house and is obstructed somewhat by the house itself. Without a doubt, working them on cw made the contacts possible. If it had been on SSB, I might have worked the 7Q7 but I doubt if I would have worked 3B8, the signals were just too weak for that. The unusual thing is that later when I checked my logbook, I had worked 3B8DB before on SSB on 10 metres...back in July 1988...20 years ago!! I see that back then I was using a home brew J-stick half wave so my aerials haven't improved much in that time ;o)
50 MHz....time to have a look around on 6 metres even though the CB half wave is poor on that band. Tune around...EI0SIX is there as usual....keep tuning..another signal! It's the EA3SIX beacon in JN01vo (1370 kms). Although that was the only Sporadic-E signal I heard on the band, conditions must be reasonably good if the MUF has gone as high as 50 MHz.
Back to 10m...and this period from 12:00 to 13:00 was the busiest part of the opening with the following heard.....IZ1GLX (cw), EA1ABT (ssb), F4DPT (ssb), CT1BH (ssb) and EA4GL (ssb). Eventually the signals began to fade out. Around 13:20, I found an unusual beacon.... C30P on 28.256.0 from the Principality of Andorra in the Pyrenees (JN02sm - 1280kms). I found this beacon by accident because it is very easy to miss it. It transmits for a short period giving it's ID and message and then it stops for about 1 minute....no dots, no signal, nothing! Unless you happen to be listening at the right time, you would never know it was there.
Signals slowly get weaker until the only signal left on the band is the EA3TEN beacon in JN01vo (1370kms) at around 13:40. Eventually even that fades until there is nothing left on the band. Tune down 1 MHz and there is a French station on the CB band at 5/7! Also heard over the next hour were some Spanish and Portugese stations until even these fade away.
Conclusions on todays opening...
1) The Sporadic-E started in the East and slowly moved to the South East and then South. I've seen this happen before on 6 metres during the Summer months.
2) Like the other days in November, the Sporadic-E signals seemed to peak around noon. During the Summer months, there are often 2 peaks...one in the morning and one during the evening.
3) The 7Q7 and 3B8 contacts were no doubt due to a Sporadic-E hop from Ireland to somewhere near Spain and from there via F2 to the DX stations. It really does emphasise the importance of Sporadic-E for DX contacts on 10 metres during sunspot minima. Sporadic-E allows stations at my latitude (~52 deg N) to get access to F2 propogation which is possible from Southern Europe.
4) My cw is rusty!! Ooooo... ;o)
Wednesday 12th November 2008.....
Today was in many ways almost the same as yesterday except that there were fewer signals. The CB band began to open up around 11:00 with a station in Belgium heard. Checked out the beacon band on 28 Mhz and the following beacons were heard....DL0IGI (JN57mt ), DM0ING (JN49ax) and DK0TEN (JN47nt)...all pretty weak signals. Eventually, these beacons and the activity faded away around. The band seemed closed arond 12:00 except for a single French CB station down on 27 MHz, all alone with a 5/7 signal!! It was almost as if the footprint of the Sporadic-E propogation was coming down in a small area of France and there alone.
At around 13:00, the band began to open up again with a weak Italian CB station making an appearance. Back up to check the beacons and the French beacon F5ZWE in JN02tw makes an appearance on 28.243.0 MHz. It peaks at 529, not too strong but it was still the strongest beacon heard today. It is also seems, like yesterday, to be one of the most persistent as when I check back 30 minutes later, it is still there although it was bwginning to fade at that stage. I also had a listen for the C30P beacon as it is in the same locator square. It was audible when it made it's appearance but pretty weak.
After about 13:30, the signals faded out on 10 metres but the CB band seemed to be busy with weak Spanish stations for at least another 2 hours.
Overall today, the CB band stayed open longer but the signals on 10m and 11m were a lot weaker. Yet again, all signals seemed to be due to Sporadic-E propogation.
On a side note, I also heard a CB station from near Thurles in Tipperary on tropo. His signal was around only about 4/1 but at a distance of around 100 kms, it suggests that this old CB half wave may not be so bad after all.
For the record, the solar flux was at 71 today, no real change from last week.
Thursday 13th November 2008.....
The band opened up today just after 10:00 UTC. Some CB stations from Luxembourg and Sweden were heard around 10:20. That was the first time that I had heard a Scandinavian country this month. Checked the 10 metre band also and the following beacons were heard over the next hour....OE3XAC (JN78sb), DL0IGI (JN57mt), LA4TEN (JO28wl - 1160 kms), LA5TEN (JO59jp near Oslo), DK0TEN (JN47nt), SK5AE (JO89kk) and SK0CT (JO89xk). After this (11:20), signals began to fade. It was almost as if the band had been open but the the MUF was only high enough to support propagation to 2 areas....1) the Southern part of Norway and Sweden and 2) the southern part of Germany.
11:40..the German beacon DM0ING (JN49ax) makes an appearance. The French beacon F5ZWE (JN02tw) shows up as well indicating that the band is opening towards the South-East as well.
11:50...with the exception of a few weak beacons and some weak French CB stations, both 10m and 11m sound very quiet. A beacon from North Germany is heard....DB0UM in JO73ce, only 4 watts into a vertical!
12:04....the LA4TEN beacon is still there. It has been in and out for around 90 minutes.
12:10...another French beacon, F5ZUU in JN24il with only 5 watts to a vertical, F5ZWE is still sounding well (519).
12:20...the band begins to open up further South with EA4Q (IN80wc) in Cuenca near Madrid.
12:50...the F5ZWE beacon is now peaking 549, the strongest beacon all day. Considering it is in the same locator square, I tune and wait for the Andorran beacon C30P..it appears albeit weakly.
Bands seem quiet though and the propogation moves back East again...OE3XAC (419) and DM0ING show up. On SSB, DB1NT is heard.
13:40...check the CB bands...very quiet.
13:45...F5ZWE/B is back again!! What a great little beacon! After that, things fade away until around 15:00, both 10m and 11m seem dead.
I later found an interesting map which shows most of the beacons above.
18:30...check the DX-cluster and notice that EI2IP spotted a strong PY (Brazil) station around 17:30. Would I have heard it if I was here??? I doubt it as I have a hill in that direction. I have often seen that before on 6 metres and on 10 metres....anyone here on the South coast of Ireland seem to be able to exploit openings to South America when the band appears dead. It's almost as if the signals are coming in at an extremely low angle. Any hills in the way or if you move inland, you lose access to these openings.
Friday 14th November 2008.....
Band opened up around 10:30 with some very weak CB stations on 11m. Checked 10 metres and heard a very weak beacon just below 28.2 but was unable to ID. In the next 10 minutes, I heard a CB station from France and one calling himself 20ET??? which would suggest Norway?!?! If it was, it was the only signal I heard that far North all day.
10:47...The French beacon F5ZWE/B makes an appearance with a good 529 signal. A few minutes later, C30P appears. Also heard is a weak CB pirate on 28.235 MHz :o(
11:10...EA4Q near Madrid appears with it's 5 watts into a ground plane antenna.
11:20...Spots on the DX Cluster suggest that the EA4Q beacon is been heard near Berlin and in central Italy. This would suggest that Sporadic-E region is over France and to the South of it also.
11:30...The French beacon F5ZWE/B is still there but soon fades as the propogation becomes mainly from the South.
12:00....and 12:30....the EA4 beacon is still there, by far the most consistent beacon of the day.
13:00...I see a G3 station in England spotting some CT beacons on 50 MHz. I tune around (...with my CB half wave!) and heard CT0SIX weakly in IN51ne on 50.031.7 MHz.
13:20 and 13:55...EA4Q/B still going strong at 519.
14:14....Portugese CB station heard.
Not long after that, the band begins to close. Open for about 4 hours and mainly from the South to South-East.
Saturday 15th November 2008.....
Around 10:15, I started hearing some CB signals on 11 metres, all very weak. Around 10:26, I checked the DX Cluster and noticed that EI2IP (~40 kms to my North-East) had spotted IT9BLB in Sicily on 28 MHz SSB with a 5/9 signal at 10:06! I listened on this frequency (~10:28) and I could hear a very weak signal. Did the signal fade?....or was it that I just wasn't hearing it??? When I first saw the spot, I thought....Sicily on 10m at 5/9 = F2 propogation. But, it didn't fit.......1) Solar flux is down around 70 anddirect F2 from this latitude is unlikely 2) If there was F2, I'd have expected something further away, out around the 3,500 to 4,000 kms mark like TA or 5B4. Sicily is about 2,400 kms from here and angle of radiation for F2 propogation would be around 8 degrees. Most of the signals that I have been hearing recently on Sporadic-E are around 1,500 kms away which would suggest that they are coming in around 4 degrees. How come I wasn't hearing signals at 8 degrees elevation???
So, I had a look at the map again...the North-West corner of Sicily might be at the limit of 1 hop Sporadic-E. Checked out IT9BLB on the net and sure enough, he was located in Palermo on the North West corner of Sicily!! The signal that EI2IP had heard was practically near the limit of 1 hop Sporadic-E. It was coming in at an extremely low angle, probably 1 degree or less. Perhaps the signal had faded by the time I tuned in???........but I doubt if I would have heard it anywhere near as well with a vertical half wave only 4 metres above ground level and with obstructions in that direction.
It's a good reminder that 10 metres is almost in a way, the lowest VHF band. You have to get those aerials up high and in the clear so that you will have a low angle of radiation. To work serious DX on 10m, you need to exploit those low angle signals.
So, back to today...12:07...heard some Spanish CB stations on 11 metres. Overall, just bits and pieces but nothing consistent. I saw a G station spotting V51AS (Namibia) on 28 MHz SSB. I listened....I could hear something extremely weak, maybe 2/1 max. Then all of a sudden he came out of the noise...4/1 calling QRZ...I called him...nothing...and I mean nothing, he was gone. Did he turn off?? It was strange how he got so strong all of a sudden.
I began to wonder if it might not be a meteor burst that enhanced his signal between EI and say EA and then on to the F2 propogation? I know the Leonids meteor shower is supposed to peak next Monday and there are supposed to be increasing number of meteors from the 14th onwards. To check the meteor theory, I tuned to the frequency of the LA4TEN beacon that was a nice signal 2 days ago. I had heard nothing that far North today and I might hear some bursts. As soon as I tuned in though at 13:42, there it was! Very weak, about 2/1 but I got enough parts of the call for a positive ID. Meteor Scatter or Sporadic-E??? Who knows...
Certainly down on the CB bands today, I have heard bursts of signals which sound English and sound like they might be meteor scatter. Next Monday might be interesting...
Sunday 16th November 2008.....
I was missing for a lot of today. I see that an EI station spotted V51AS on 28 MHz cw so there must have been some Sporadic-E and F2 about to the South.
Monday 17th November 2008.....
First a general report....I had the radio on in the background and as far as I could tell there was no Sporadic-E all day. The DX Cluster was also very quiet.
Since today was supposed to be the peak for the Leonids Meteor shower, I had a listen this morning for 1 hour between 08:35 and 09:35 on 28.215.1 MHz for the GB3RAL beacon. I heard several pings and a very long burst but the signals were very weak and I was not able to get a positive ID. I sent an e-mail to someone about it so hopefully they can confirm what I heard.
Down on the CB bands around 10:00, I heard some evidence of some nice meteor scatter signals. One CB station in Cambridgeshire (5/7) mentioned that conditions were "very sporadic" ;o)....in other words, the signals were up and down. Also heard on 27 MHz ssb was someone mobile (5/3) on the M25 around London. I presume most of the CB stations just thought it was 'good skip conditions' without realising that their signals were coming off meteor trails left in the upper atmosphere!! I heard a few French CB stations as well but most were of short duration. Probably due to meteor scatter rather than Sporadic-E.
Tuesday 18th November 2008.....
Today was pretty dead on 10 and 11 metres. I heard bits of European signals on 11 metres but nothing much. I listened for the GB3RAL beacon again this morning and heard a few pings.
Wednesday 19th November 2008....
Real sunspot minimum stuff where 10 metres sounds more like 2 metres than a HF band. Bit's of Europeans heard on 11 metres. I heard one strong Swiss SB station but when I scanned around...nothing! Might have been just a meteor burst.
Thursday 20th November 2008....
Even quieter than yesterday.
Friday 21st November 2008....
Missed today. There were a few spots on the cluster for English stations so maybe the 10 metre band was open?
Saturday 22nd November 2008....
Weak opening for about 30 minutes around 11:30. Heard a few CB stations on 27 MHz, sounded French. On 10 metres, the band was open from here (Cork - IO51) to the South of France. Heard F5ZWE/B and C30P in JN02. Max 419.
Sunday 23rd November 2008...
I missed today. However I noticed that on the DX Cluster, Robbie EI2IP who is about 40 kms away had spotted several beacons in LA, SM, DL, OK. Even though I am only using a half wave, it's probably safe to say that I would probably have heard something and should count this day as an active one.
Monday 24th November 2008...
Missed today. Cluster looked pretty dead anyway.
Tuesday 25th November 2008...
Another dead day...
Wednesday 26th November 2008...
Very short opening today. 10 metres and 11 metres opened for about 30 minutes.
10:55....heard some weak CB stations in North France and Poland on 27 MHz.
11:04....heard the German beacon DB0UM in JO73ce on 28.278.7 MHz. Pretty weak, maybe 419 max. The mid point of this path was somewhere over ON/PA (Belgium/Netherlands). What was interesting was that a few minutes late, F5TMJ in the South of France spotted the SK5AE beacon in Sweden. The mid point for his path was roughly the same as mine. You often get this on 6m metres and 2 metres where there is one Sporadic-E hot spot and the propogation paths resulting from it are like spokes of a wheel.
11:25...bands dead again.
Thursday 27th November 2008...
Turned on at 10:00 and there was a weak opening in progress. Judging by the DX Cluster, it wasn't open too long anyway beforehand, maybe 20 minutes?
10:00 Heard weak Italian CB stations on 27 MHz.
10:19 Hearing weak French CB
10:40 Hearing the French beacon F5ZUU on 28.241.4 MHz. Signal is weak...perhaps 319 to 419 max.
11:15 Band has closed again. Nothing on 27 or 28 MHz.
The opening today was typical of what I have heard this month....band opens for maybe 2 hours or so, signals are weak. However, it was a bit unusual in that it seemed to open earlier than usual.
Friday 28th November 2008...
Dead quiet today.
Saturday 29th November 2008...
Today was the first day of the CQWW CW contest. It's amazing that when there are high powered stations constantly transmitting, every possible propogation path shows up. As a result, today was unusual in that while the CB band appeared dead, 10 metres sprung to life. Perhaps 'sprung' is a bit of an over exageration in that what was spotted on the DX Cluster made it obvious the limitations of using a CB half wave vertical antenna at only 4 metres above ground level.
11:25...The band opened for me with some Sporadic-E to the South. The Spanish contest station EE2W was heard very weakly, perhaps 419 max. It was obvious from the cluster that with a better antenna at a greater height, I would have heard a lot more.
12:10...The French beacon F5ZUU in JN24 was heard at around 319. At much the same time, EI2IP about 40 kms spotted a Portugese beacon at 599. Nothing audible here. South is a direction in which my local hill begins to get nasty. Again, more height on the antenna would have made a big difference.
Other than that, I was really hearing nothing other than the contest station 3X5A buried in the noise. From the snippets I was getting, I could tell that he was not too busy with plenty of CQ Contest calls. Just left the rig on the frequency while I worked away on something else until about 12:29, he popped up out of the noise to a 549. Quick call, quick exchange and 3X5A was in the log. And sure enough, he started to fade back down into the noise again. Other than that, nothing else was heard although stuff was getting spotted on the DX Cluster by EI and G stations. Todays lesson.......like 6 metres, you really need a beam and /or a good site to fully exploit openings on the band.
Sunday 30th December 2008...
I listened during the morning until 12:00. Even though the contest was in full blast, there wasn't a signal here on 28 MHz. Even the cluster didn't suggest that the band was open anywhere else in the UK or Ireland. When I checked again around 16:00, the cluster suggested that the band had opened during the early afternoon. Would I have heard anything???

Back on 10 metres again...

2008-11-06T16:30:00.015Z

Things have been very quiet on the radio front for the last few years. Looking at the logbook, the last time I was really on was back in April 2005. So I have been off the air for over 3 years! I guess it was mainly due to just a lack of interest. Certainly, at the moment, I am getting interested again but the whole 'DX' thing holds no interest for me. It might be interesting to get a few 'DX' contacts from a propogation point of view but I have no interest in starting to 'chase' countries again. I know that on most of the HF bands, I have more countries worked that I could ever hope to get confirmed.

So, what to do to get back on air? Most of my aerials have blown down or suffered some damage in the last 3 years so I am basically starting from scratch again. But what aerials to put up? What bands? My first priority was just to put up something to get me back on the air again, nothing too fancy ;o)

About 20 years ago when I first got on HF, my favourite band at the time was 10 metres. It's a band that has properties of both HF and VHF propogation and I used to be very active on it. I had an old CB aerial that was given to me years ago and which I used for a small while in the mid 90's. So, that was the obvious choice to get me going again.

Looking at the lenght, it seems to be an end fed half wave i.e. approx 5 metres long with a matching coil in the base. There is no name on it but I presume most of these aerials are much the same. The only question mark I have about it is whether there is much loss in the base matching coil? I seem to remember when I changed this aerial (half wave) for a multi-band vertical (Cushcraft R-6000)(3/8 wave) a few years ago, my signal on 10 metres improved a lot?
Perhaps I was mistaken but I still have my doubts about whether this type of CB aerial is a good performer.

So, at the start of November 2008, I mounted the CB half wave on a 4 metre pole and fed it with Westflex 103 coax. Why only 4 metres??....it just so happens that I have a pole that lenght and by having it that low, it reduces the wind load on the aerial.

VSWR.......
Looking at the VSWR readings that I was getting, it would seem as if the 1:1.5 VSWR bandwidth was about 700 khz. I adjusted the lenght so that the lowest VSWR which seemed to be 1:1.2 to 1.3, was near 28.300 MHz.

28.0.....28.2.....28.4.....28.6.....28.8.....29.0
1.3.......1.3.........1.3........1.5........1.8.......2.1

This put the upper 1:1.5 VSWR limit up around 28.650 MHz and the lower one was probably down around 27.950 MHz although I had no way of confirming this. By selecting 28.300 MHz as the midpoint, it meant that I could still cover most of the SSB part of the band, the CW section is really good and the VSWR down on the CB band is still reasonable so that will be useful for listening for propogation indicators down there. Looking at the 2:1 VSWR bandwidth, it probably goes from 27.7 MHz to 29.0 MHz, around 1.3 Mhz.

Comparison...Old aerial V Sirio Half Wave
The old CB half wave looks pretty similiar to the Sirio GPS27 1/2 as seen on this website. That site suggests a minimum VSWR of 1:1.2, a 1:1.5 VSWR bandwidth of 0.75 MHz and a 1:2 VSWR bandwidth of 1.35 MHz for it's antenna. Those figures look very close to the readings that I got for my half wave.

Odd effects...
The above VSWR readings were taken with the meter built into the Kenwood TS690 transceiver. When I placed an external VSWR meter in line, I got similiar readings. The strange effect was that the VSWR now as seen by the rig was a lot lower. In fact, from 28.0 to 29.0 MHz, the VSWR stayed around 1:1.1. It was almost as if by putting the external VSWR meter in line, it was helping to match the aerial to the rig. Almost like an ATU!! Strange...

Performance...
The first good sign is that the aerial is picking up lots of noise so it must be working in some sort of fashion. There seems to be a constant S '3' noise level on AM so perhaps this isn't the quietest of radio locations. Certainly, it picks up a fair bit of noise from the PC which is about 8 metres away.

CB Bands...
Listening to the CB band, there seems to be very little activity locally. I can hear a few weak CB stations on SSB at night but due to the absense of proper callsigns, it's difficult to say how far away they are. I heard one mention that he has in Rathmore, Co.Kerry which is about 50 kms away on the far side of the Boggeragh Mountains so perhaps this aerial is not so bad after all?

Another unusual feature of the local CB band is that the churches use it to broadcast the mass service to elderly or sick people who are unable to travel to church. There seems to be several of them...

27.065 MHz...FM...S '3'...Location?
27.305 MHz...AM...S '1'...Location?
27.325 MHz...FM...S '4'...Location?
27.525 MHz...FM...S '4'...Location?
27.595 MHz...FM...S ' 6'...Location?
27.605 MHz...FM...S '7'...Location?
27.615 MHz...FM...S ' 1-2'...Location?
27.625 MHz...FM...S ' 6'...Location?
27.675 MHz...FM...S '9+40dB'.....Glounthaune, East Cork.

I have them listed here with their signal strenghts on AM as they might be useful as local signal sources. That way, if I change aerials, I can do a comparison and see if there is an improvement or not.

50 MHz...
I had a quick listen on 6 metres with this aerial and I was suprised to hear the EI beacon EI0SIX on 50.051.66 Mhz (20w & Half wave vertical)(IO63nf). This beacon is approx 180 kms to the NNE from my location here in Cork. Considering the matching coil at the bottom of the CB aerial, I would have thought that 50 MHz would have been filtered out? It doesn't seem so although as expected, the VSWR is pretty high.
The beacon is about 419 in signal strenght although it does vary slightly, almost as if there is a slow variation in tropo conditions over the 180 km path. It peaks around 519 and goes as low as 319 but is always audible.

So that's it, I'm back on the air and on 10 metres again....

Morse is sooo hard to learn....

2008-11-06T16:03:00.000Z

Morse Code V Mobile Phone Texting

2008-11-06T15:47:00.000Z

Came accross this on YouTube....

Useful Tools....

2008-10-08T13:36:00.001+01:00

Frequency to Wavelenght Converter.........AF & RF........http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-wavelength.htm

Grid Square.......Click on the Google map to see what your grid square is........nice utility.....shows the size of the little sub-square as well..........http://f6fvy.free.fr/qthLocator/fullScreen.php

Amateur Bands......Links

2008-10-06T15:49:00.003+01:00

Activity............
DX Cluster........http://www.dxsummit.fi/
Internation Beacon Project...Time shared HF beacons...http://www.ncdxf.org/Beacon/BeaconSchedule.html
Region 1 VHF Beacons.........http://data.dcc.rsgb.org/
G3USF's HF Beacon List.......http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/por/28.htm

Clubs & Organisations..........
50 MHz......UK Six Metre Group........http://www.uksmg.org/news.php
70 MHz......The 4 Metres website......http://www.70mhz.org/

http://www.southgatearc.org/index.htm

http://www.30meterdigital.org/files/30_Meter_Band_INFORMATION.pdf

http://www.mydarc.de/dl8wx/baken_kw.htm

Links to Electronics (non-radio) sites

2008-10-06T15:03:00.000+01:00

Homebrew related websites........
BASIC Stamps.........http://www.parallax.com/

Kits & Equipment......
AADE...Almost All Digital Electronics.....LC Meter/Freq counter....http://www.aade.com/

Parts.......

Scratchpad.......some sites to check out and examine
Audacity......audio editing proram..........http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Misc tech stuff.........HackaDay.......http://hackaday.com/

Links to Radio related audio and video podcasts

2008-10-06T13:12:00.000+01:00

Video.........
AmateurLogic....a series covering a wide range of subjects......http://www.amateurlogic.com/blog/
K7AGE.......covers a wide range of subjects. Interesting section on PSK31......http://www.youtube.com/user/K7AGE

Audio.......
Soldersmoke.......interesting podcasts mainly about homebrewing.......http://www.soldersmoke.com/