GB3RAL on 28 MHz via Meteor Scatter

On Friday the 18th of November, I had the rig turned to 28.2150 MHz, the frequency of the GB3RAL 10 metre beacon in the UK.

I was using Spectrum Lab on the PC with the microphone resting on top of the HF rig....an easy way to monitor a frequency while working away on something else. If there is anything there buried in the noise, it will usually show up on the screen.

I've listened to this back in 2008 and found it hard to get a positive ID. It seemed to be just a carrier without any CW.

This time around, I got 'AL' on cw within about 20 minutes so I knew I was hearing it. There were plenty of pings over the space of an hour and then at about 10:28 UTC, I got this fine 4 minute burst...

Right hand side shows the audio freq in Hz.

The tone was easy to hear at times as it transmitted "GB3RAL IO91IN". It certainly wasn't a huge signal...maybe 419 at best but clear all the same.

I'd imagine it would have been really easy to make a contact on a digital mode like JT65.

It was only afterwards that I noticed that the Leonid meteor shower peaks on the 18th of November so perhaps it was due to one of those.

On a positive note, it's good that the new 10 metre vertical seems to be working well.

Signals on 28 Mhz...Sat 19th Nov 2016

With the Solar Flux index down at 78, there isn't much in the way of F2 propagation at the moment. However, there was some Sporadic-E today.

In the morning, I heard the beacon on the Faroe Islands which is always interesting as it's to the North.

EI7GL-@ 28282.5 OK0EG/B 10:38 19 Nov JO70weIO51tu Czech Republic
EI7GL-@ 28237.4 LA5TEN/B 10:32 19 Nov JO59jpIO51tu Norway
EI7GL-@ 28235.0 OY6BEC/B 10:26 19 Nov IP62oaIO51tu Faroe Islands

I also left the rig on the WSPR frequency for a few hours and heard the following.....

It was one of the days where the casual observer might say the band was dead but there were weak signals there all the same. As you can see from the list, some of these were running less than 1 watt.

Interesting Sporadic-E conditions for this time of year. It also suggests that the new 10m vertical antenna is working just fine.

WSPR on 28 MHz...4th and 5th of Oct 2012

I left the rig listening to WSPR signals on 10 metres over the last two days and both were reasonably similar.  These were the individual stations heard on the 4th of October.....


2012-10-04 19:32 CX2ABP 28.126071 -27 0 GF15wc 10 EI7GL IO51tu 10705 27 
2012-10-04 19:24 EA8FF 28.126110 -9 0 IL18pc 2 EI7GL IO51tu 2730 12 
2012-10-04 18:32 N6OIL 28.126066 -28 0 DM14fl 0.2 EI7GL IO51tu 8212 37 
2012-10-04 17:44 KK4XO 28.126006 -20 1 EL96uf 5 EI7GL IO51tu 6527 43 
2012-10-04 14:48 UA6AAK 28.126084 -13 0 KN96dq 5 EI7GL IO51tu 3374 297 
2012-10-04 14:48 W3PM 28.126123 -10 0 EM64or 0.5 EI7GL IO51tu 6298 46 
2012-10-04 14:44 KE7A 28.126077 -17 0 EM12kx 5 EI7GL IO51tu 7109 43 
2012-10-04 13:30 HS1ZKM 28.126114 -22 -1 OK03gr 5 EI7GL IO51tu 10058 324 
2012-10-04 13:06 AI4ZN 28.126125 -19 -3 FM02 2 EI7GL IO51tu 5949 46 
2012-10-04 13:02 SV1FXO 28.126027 +1 0 KM17ux 5 EI7GL IO51tu 2925 312 
2012-10-04 11:16 OZ7IT 28.126142 -26 0 JO65df 5 EI7GL IO51tu 1410 263 
2012-10-04 09:06 VK5AKJ 28.126045 -23 1 QF02id 5 EI7GL IO51tu 17156 313 

The 5th of October was a little better for Australia with four stations making it through between 7:18 to 9:58 UTC. According to an online calculator, sunset in Sydney was at 08:02 UTC.

WSPR signals heard on 28 MHz...Friday 5th Oct 2012

There were some Sporadic-E signals around Europe again. EA8FF who is one F2 hop to the south (2730 kms) was the most consistent signal again and the band opened to the USA again.

These were the individual stations heard on the 5th of October...


2012-10-05 20:08 K7UEB 28.126063 -19 0 DN06tb 5 EI7GL IO51tu 7248 40 
2012-10-05 18:54 EA8FF 28.126110 -2 0 IL18pc 2 EI7GL IO51tu 2730 12 
2012-10-05 18:02 KC4LE 28.126093 -20 1 EM63nh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 6412 46 
2012-10-05 17:58 W3PM 28.126115 -24 0 EM64or 0.01 EI7GL IO51tu 6298 46 
2012-10-05 17:38 KK4XO 28.126008 -6 1 EL96uf 5 EI7GL IO51tu 6527 43 
2012-10-05 16:40 W9HLY 28.126018 -17 0 EN70mt 1 EI7GL IO51tu 5727 50 
2012-10-05 16:38 K9AN 28.126168 -10 0 EN50wc 0.5 EI7GL IO51tu 5982 49 
2012-10-05 16:06 4X1RF 28.126169 -24 0 KM72ls 2 EI7GL IO51tu 4063 315 
2012-10-05 13:52 OZ1PIF 28.126132 -24 0 JO65an 5 EI7GL IO51tu 1400 261 
2012-10-05 13:50 DB0ZDF 28.126085 -17 -1 JN49cx 5 EI7GL IO51tu 1178 287 
2012-10-05 13:48 GW7PEO 28.126189 -20 -1 IO83gh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 246 
2012-10-05 12:18 F6HCO 28.126107 -22 0 JN19bg 10 EI7GL IO51tu 794 295 
2012-10-05 10:30 SA6BSC 28.126121 -24 0 JO67ts 5 EI7GL IO51tu 1546 254 
2012-10-05 09:58 VK5AKJ 28.126092 -25 0 QF02id 2 EI7GL IO51tu 17156 313 
2012-10-05 09:34 VK2KRR 28.126133 -22 0 QF34mr 5 EI7GL IO51tu 17333 321 
2012-10-05 09:24 R3LW 28.126022 +10 0 KO54mq 5 EI7GL IO51tu 2605 279 
2012-10-05 07:20 VK2FLR 28.126074 +1 0 QF56od 10 EI7GL IO51tu 17430 327 
2012-10-05 07:18 VK2MEV 28.126152 -25 1 QF57ua 5 EI7GL IO51tu 17373 329 

Interesting enough, the last signal heard was K7UEB which is a club station at a university in Washington State in the north-east of the USA.

GW7PEO........The most unusual signal of the day is again, GW7PEO. I heard his signal three times on the 5th of October.

Timestamp Call MHz SNR Drift Grid Pwr Reporter RGrid km az
 2012-10-05 13:48 GW7PEO 28.126189 -20 -1 IO83gh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 246 
 2012-10-05 12:34 GW7PEO 28.126133 -23 -1 IO83gh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 246 
 2012-10-05 10:46 GW7PEO 28.126137 -24 -3 IO83gh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 246 
 2012-10-03 13:44 GW7PEO 28.126137 -21 -1 IO83gh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 246 
 2012-10-02 14:52 GW7PEO 28.126146 -24 0 IO83gh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 246 
 2012-10-02 14:30 GW7PEO 28.126146 -23 0 IO83gh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 246 

The question is how? I presume it is F2 backscatter as I often hear EA8FF at the same time (as can be seen from the bright trace in the WSPR display above) but why haven't I seen any other spots from other UK stations in the three days?

I sent Phil, GW7PEO an e-mail to enquire about his working conditions on 28 MHz and he very kindly replied. Power = 8 watts......which after compensating for coax losses gives about 5w at the antenna which is a multi-band vertical. Good low take off to the mountains to the south/south-west....i.e. in my direction.

If the signal was direct via tropo then I'd expect to have seen more spots. Backscatter via F2 is probably the most likely explanation. It got me thinking though if it was at all possible that it might be from aircraft scatter? GW7PEO is very close to the flight path for planes going from Dublin/Belfast to London.

The problem with the aircraft scatter theory is that there will be a certain amount of doppler shift on the signal, even at 28 MHz. The maximum amount of drift allowed on a WSPR signal is about 4 Hz. If I understood the figures correctly with an online calculator, the maximum amount of doppler at 28 MHz from an aircraft doing about 800 kph is about 19 Hz. Unless of course if the plane was going at right angles to the direct path between the two stations in which case, the doppler shift would be a lot less.

F2 backscatter? Aircraft scatter? Tropo? Hard to tell with just 6 spots.

Conditions on 28 MHz...Sat 29th Sept 2012

After a long absence of over a year, I finally turned the radio back on again this weekend. My previous post is dated June 2011 so I guess I haven't listened in 15 months. It's hard to say exactly why I was off for so long? I guess it's perhaps that I lost the habit of turning on the radio and having a listen.

About a week ago, I started looking through some of the more recent issues of the IRTS Newsletter and some of the items there caught my interest. One in particular was the two part piece by EI5DD on WSPR and QRSS which was something I had spent a bit of time on in the past. This got me looking at some of the blogs that I 'follow'. One mentioned good conditions on 28 MHz and that was the trigger to turn on the rig last weekend.

Needless to say, some of the aerials are in a bad way after the year of neglect. I know I cut through some wire with the hedge clippers a few weeks back ;o) . Suprisingly enough, the 10m vertical still works fine! After all of the gales last Winter and Spring, it's still reasonably straight and the VSWR seems fine. There is perhaps a lot to be said for having a cheap half-wave CB antenna on a 4 metre pole as opposed to something better up at a greater height.

Solar Flux......The big difference in the last 15 months of course is the solar flux. In the Summer of 2011, the solar flux was down around the 100 mark whereas it is now up around 140. Looking at the graph for the current solar cycle, it is predicted to peak in mid 2013 so perhaps it's a good time to be back on the radio!

Conditions over the weekend......Sat 29th/Sun 30th Sept 2012.......I spent most of the time on the radio this weekend listening for the various beacons around 28.2 MHz. The best thing about the beacons is that they give a good snapshot of what conditions are like on the band which may not always be obvious when listening to SSB. I also have to admit that I have pretty much no interest in chasing DX or contests so I had no real interest in making loads of contacts.......a case of been there, done that.

The lists below are from the Saturday, the 29th of September. The items in bold are the ones of interest to me...

Saturday 29th Sept 2012
28193.2 VE4ARM/B    EN09at                     2031 29 Sep   Canada
28222.6 N4QDK/B     EM96                     2022 29 Sep   United States
28182.1 VY0SNO/B    FP53rs                   2015 29 Sep   Canada
28281.2 W8EH/B      EM79tm          2006 29 Sep   United States
28251.8 KX5TX/B    EM11hx                     1936 29 Sep   United States
28300.1 K6FRC/B     CM99                     1906 29 Sep   United States
28293.1 ND4Z        EM94ja                     1859 29 Sep   United States
28291.7 VA3VA/B     EN82                     1853 29 Sep   Canada
28287.9 N8PUM/B      EN66 warble              1847 29 Sep   United States
28224.9 IT9EJW/B    JM77nn                   1742 29 Sep   Sicily
28257.9 WY5I/B     EL97                     1725 29 Sep   United States
28230.0 IQ8CZ/B      JM88HV                   1719 29 Sep   Italy
28193.3 LU2ERC/B   GF15                     1715 29 Sep   Argentina
28193.2 VE4ARM/B    EN09at                     1700 29 Sep   Canada
28271.1 SV2HQL/B     KM09UV                   1608 29 Sep   Greece
28261.9 RK3XWA/B    KO84DM                   1603 29 Sep   European Russia
28245.2 SV2AHT/B    KN10NO                   1558 29 Sep   Greece
28239.0 VA7PL/B    DN09gv                     1552 29 Sep   Canada
28215.7 KD5CKP/B     EM54bx                     1537 29 Sep   United States
28208.0 W4CND/B    EM63                     1527 29 Sep   United States
28203.2 PY2WFG/B    GG77FF                   1518 29 Sep   Brazil
28182.1 VY0SNO/B    FP53rs                   1510 29 Sep   Canada
28300.1 K6FRC/B    CM99                     1500 29 Sep   United States
28299.9 KF4MS/B     EM70vm                     1456 29 Sep   United States
28298.1 K5TLL/B    EM51gg                   1451 29 Sep   United States
28297.1 NS9RC      EN62dc                   1448 29 Sep   United States
28291.7 K5TLJ/B   EM45 AZ                  1433 29 Sep   United States
28286.4 W0ILO/B     EN16ov                     1426 29 Sep   United States
28283.5 KC9GNK/B   EN53hc 319                 1421 29 Sep   United States
28281.1 W8EH/B    EM79tm                     1409 29 Sep   United States
28276.1 K4FUM/B    EM73wu                     1407 29 Sep   United States
28276.0 K4UKB/B     EM77np                   1404 29 Sep   United States
28275.4 KG4GVV/B    EM93wa                   1358 29 Sep   United States
28273.2 AC4DJ/B      EL98                     1354 29 Sep   United States
28269.4 W3HH/B       EL89                     1349 29 Sep   United States
28264.0 AB8Z/B       EN91dj       1333 29 Sep   United States
28250.1 K0HTF/B      EN31do      1325 29 Sep   United States
28246.4 KI4LEV/B     EM66io        1321 29 Sep   United States
28231.0 WA4FC/B      FM17fe        1313 29 Sep   United States
28224.7 YM7TEN/B     KN91                    1305 29 Sep   Asiatic Turkey
28222.5 N4QDK/B      EM96  Nice 559            1300 29 Sep   United States
28214.1 N4PAL/B      EM70vm       1256 29 Sep   United States
28212.5 KJ4QYB/B     EM63           1249 29 Sep   United States
28207.0 N3NIA/B      Beacon on .205 and .207            1216 29 Sep   United States
28205.1 N3NIA/B      FN01pk       1207 29 Sep   United States
28204.6 KE4TWI/B     EM66uc        1154 29 Sep   United States
28193.1 LU2ERC/B     GF15ad        1148 29 Sep   Argentina
28188.7 SV5TEN/B     KM46ck       1143 29 Sep   Dodecanese
28182.5 SV3AQR/B     KM07qs   1138 29 Sep   Greece

Sat 29th Sept......I switched on about 12 noon and the first beacons heard were from around Greece......around 3,000-3,500 kms which is one hop F2 signals so nothing special there. I was also hearing beacons in Brazil and Argentina which was obviously multi-hop but in general, North-South paths are nearly always the easiest on 28 MHz so still nothing special. Beacons around Florida were heard but again, that's the most southerly path to the USA and is nearly always the first part of the US to be heard. Even when the solar flux is much lower, it's not unusual to have openings to Florida.

What was interesting though were the beacons in the mid US. e.g. K0HTF/B in EN31 in Iowa (2.5w/GP) and W0ILO/B in EN16 in North Dakota. This is a more northerly path and means that conditions were good.

CW Beacons on 28 MHz heard from North America on Saturday, the 28th of September 2012

As you can see from the map above, most of the beacons heard were roughly in a broad arc going from Florida to the Great Lakes. This can be easily explained by the fact that it was most likely double hop F2 propagation.

For example, Florida is roughly 6,500 kms...too far for one F2 hop.....but perfect when you consider 2 x 3,250 km hops...a typical distance for signals on 28 MHz when the MUF is probably just up over 30 MHz. This also explains why nothing heard from the 1 or 2 call areas in the NE of the US....too far for one hop and too close for the second hop. In effect, the propagation footprint can be laid out like a series on concentric rings or doughnuts.

The only one hop signal heard to the west was VY0SNO/B in FR53rs in Baffin Island. This was also very close to half-way for double hop to the signals heard from California (2 x 4,000 kms = 8,000 kms). The fact that the 28 MHz signals went this far north is a sure sign of how good conditions were. There is something special about hearing the West coast of the US and Canada on 10 metres.

So was the band wide open on 28 MHz? Well....no. When it's wide open, you hear all the US call areas and then maybe Alaska and Hawaii. Conditions still have a way to go before they reach those reached during the last solar cycle.

10 metres...Thurs 24th March 2011

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)

WSPR & V51 Namibia on 10m

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

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

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???

Back on 10 metres again...

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....