Over the last few years, I've reported on many Trans-Equatorial Propagation (TEP) contacts from South America to the Caribbean on the 144 MHz band... links on my 144 MHz page.
For this mode of propagation at 144 MHz, signals must generally cross the Geomagnetic Equator at right angles. This usually means that stations in the south of Brazil work places like Guadeloupe, St Martin & Puerto Rico. Stations near Buenos Aires in Argentina work stations in Curacao & the Dominican Republic.
There has been a distinct lack of 144 MHz TEP openings further west in South America mainly due to a lack of stations at one or both ends of the paths.
So it was a really big surprise to hear that Carlos, LU7MC in the west of Argentina managed to complete a contact with Yuri, UT1FG/MM on a ship to the north of Cuba!
The contact was made using the Q65B mode on the 9th of December 2024 at 01:34 UTC. This is just after 20:00 local time for both stations which is about the peak time for evening type TEP.
The distance was in the region of 6474 kms which is exceptionally long for a 144 MHz TEP contact for South America.
The map above shows just how close UT1FG/MM was to the Florida. His ship was just 80kms south of the road going to Key West and about 170kms south of Miami.
It's hard to know for certain but I suspect that the TEP signal from LU7MC almost certainly reached Florida. It was most likely that there was nobody active there and looking.
Mode of Propagation... As indicated already, the mode of propagation was TEP - Trans-Equatorial Propagation. There may have been an extension at the northern end of the circuit with some marine tropo / ducting north of Cuba.
Mode of contact... The Q65B mode was used for this 144 MHz contact. The screen shot from LU7MC is shown below...
As you can see below, the signal level was about 0dB to -8dB which is probably too weak for SSB but should be strong enough to be heard by ear and a CW contact would be possible.
The screen shot from UT1FG/MM is shown below...
The signal levels were about the same at -4dB to -8dB.
Equipment... Carlos, LU7MC is located in the city of Mendoza in grid locator square FF57OB. He was running 100-watts into an array of 4 x 10-element Yagi antennas.
Yuri, UT1FG works on a commercial ship and was Maritime Mobile between Cuba and Florida in grid locator EL94PC. He was running 200-watts into a single 7-element Yagi antenna.
In conclusion... This really was an important contact on the 144 MHz band because it shows that there is a very good possibility of a TEP path from the west of Argentina to Florida. Could it extend even further north to some of the other southern US states by tropo? Could the stations in Chile get in on the action?
The really big question is if anyone in the United States is paying attention and is going to try and make a contact?
Link... a) For more information on long distance 2m contacts, see my 144 MHz page.
At the recent RSGB Convention, there were a number of presentations given on the live stream. On the stream for Sunday 13th October 2024, Steve Nichols, G0YKA gave a presentation titled 'Solar Cycle 25 - predictions V reality'.
In the presentation, G0YKA looks at what the predictions for the peak of solar cycle 25 were, what the peak is actually turning out to be like and what the near future might hold.
The live stream for Sunday 13th Oct is embedded below. Use the controls to move forward to 5:31:52 for the start of the presentation.
The talk is about 45-minutes in length and ends at 6:16:35.
See video below, just press the red play button...
As part of a challenge for 2024, I've decided to see how many QRSS signals I could capture on the 28 MHz band during the year. On the 14th of May, I got a screengrab of the QRSS signal 'SP' which was sent by the IZKXQ/B beacon in the north of Italy.
Usually, nearly all of the QRSS signals on the 10m band are on 28.1246 MHz and the audio of the signals is about 400-500Hz below the WSPR signals. In this case, the IZ1KXQ beacon was on 28.3215 MHz.
In the image above, the fuzzy part of the signal is when it was sending the callsign of the beacon in normal morse code. The QRSS 'SP' part is sent after this.
The beacon runs 0.1-watts or 100-milliwatts into an inverted V-dipole antenna.
The map above shows the path and the distance was about 1600kms. The signal was almost certainly via Sporadic-E and it's pretty much the ideal distance for that mode of propagation.
In summary... That brings the QRSS tally so far for 2024 up to 21-callsigns & 10 DXCC.
1) 8th Jan 2024: VE1VDM - DXCC #1 2) 10th Jan 2024: VA1VM 3) 15th Jan 2024: G0MBA - DXCC #2 4) 15th Jan 2024: G0PKT 5) 15th Jan 2024: AE0V - DXCC #3 6) 16th Jan 2024: RD4HU - DXCC #4 7) 16th Jan 2024: W1BW 8) 17th Jan 2024: OH5KUY - DXCC #5 9) 18th Jan 2024: TF3HZ - DXCC #6 10) 6th Feb 2024: VA3RYV 11) 16th Feb 2024: IK2JET - DXCC #7 12) 16th Feb 2024: N8NJ 13) 21st Feb 2024: PY3FF - DXCC #8 14) 26th Feb 2024: VE6NGK 15) 27th Feb 2024: NM5ER 16) 28th Feb 2024: VK4BAP - DXCC #9 17) 2nd Mar 2024: WA1EDJ 18) 5th Mar 2024: FR1GZ/B - DXCC #10 19) 30th Apr 2024: IK1WVQ 20) 8th May 2024: IW0HK/B 21) 14th May 2024: IZ1KXQ/B
There is a major expedition planned to Jarvis Island in the middle of the Pacific in early August 2024 and their planned operations include some 50 MHz activity.
Press release
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Dear Fellow DXers,
In March the Dateline DX Association was pleased to announce that it has received permission from the USFWS for a DXpedition to Jarvis Island National Wildlife Reserve this August. Jarvis is ranked nr. 18 on Clublog's global most wanted list. It is number 9 in Europe. In some EU countries Jarvis is ranked as high as second most wanted on phone and digial. Jarvis is ranked higher than Bouvet (16) in Europe. It is 450 miles from Palmyra Atoll and 1500 miles from Hawaii.
High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is based in Alaska and it's a high-power, high frequency (HF) transmitter for studying the ionosphere. The principal instrument is a phased array of 180 HF crossed-dipole antennas capable of radiating 3.6 megawatts into the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. Transmit frequencies are selectable in the range of 2.7 to 10 MHz.
The research team have announced that they will be carrying out tests from the 8th to the 10th of May 2024.
The press release is shown below and I've added a map to show location and distance.
Date: May 2, 2024
To: Amateur Radio & Radio Astronomy Communities
From: HAARP Program Office
Subject: Notice of Transmission
The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) will be conducting a research campaign May 8-10 UTC, with operating times specified in the table below. Operating frequencies will vary, but all HAARP transmissions will be between 2.8 MHz and 10 MHz. Actual transmit days and times are highly variable based on real-time ionospheric and/or geomagnetic conditions. All information is subject to change.
This campaign is being conducted in support of research proposals from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and is studying mechanisms for the detection of orbiting space debris. Space debris poses a major risk to all space operations, including manned spacecraft and communications satellites. The experiments being performed at HAARP will help identify ways to improve collision detection on satellites.
Note that these experiments will operate at frequencies based on the f0F2 frequency from the Gakona ionograms. In general, transmissions will be very close to the f0F2 frequency. There are no specific data collection requests from funded investigators, but reception reports are appreciated and may be submitted to uaf-gi-haarp AT alaska DOT edu or to: HAARP, PO Box 271, Gakona, AK 99586
For updates on ionospheric conditions in Gakona, please consult ionograms from the HAARP
The image above is an annotated ionogram from HAARP that describes features that may be of
interest. Note that f0F2 is calculated at the top left.
f0F2 is the critical frequency of the F2 layer of the Earth’s ionosphere. This is the frequency at which radio signals stop refracting off the ionosphere and begin passing through to outer space. For certain HAARP experiments that deal with interactions in the ionosphere, transmission frequencies below f0F2 are desirable, while for other experiments (such as those involving high altitude satellites), staying above f0F2 is required.
Thanks to the paid subscribers to the new EI7GL newsletter on Substack, I've used the funds to subscribe to a few amateur radio related organisations. Not only does this support them but I hope to give a bit of publicity to the various publications as well so others might subscribe.
In this post, we'll look at the Spring 2024 edition of the SPRAT magazine, the journal for the G-QRP club.
At first glance, it would be easy to assume that the G-QRP club is only a special interest group interested in just about operating at low power (5-watts or less) and nothing else. While that is no doubt true for some members, a large part of the club ethos is about experimentation with members building their own equipment.
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The Spring edition of SPRAT magazine has 44-pages including the covers. Here are a few of the items that I found of interest...
50 MHz projects - The G-QRP club will be 50-years old in September of 2024. To mark the occasion, they are holding two construction competitions. One of these is for construction projects for the 50 MHz (6m) band with a closing date of the end of Oct-2025.
Silver Plated Capacitors - An article on how to clean silver plated variable capacitors that have become tarnished.
ISM - G3XBM has an article about using very low power on the various ISM (Industrial, Scientific, Medical) bands including the one at 40.660 to 40.700 MHz.
Matchbox TX - A simple two transmitter for either the 40m or 20m bands which fits inside a matchbox.
Antenna Feeding - Article on balun designs and antenna feeding.
Active Loop - A design for an active loop antenna for the HF bands using four 2N3904 transistors. Also available as a kit.
RF sniffer - A simple little LED tester to indicate the presence of RF energy
Members news - Lot of news from members of what they're building and doing.
Sales - An extensive list of parts like crystals, IC's, transistors, toroids, wire, kits, etc available for members to purchase.
SPRAT magazine is published four times a years and is posted out to members, there is no digital edition.
The current cost of membership is just £6 for the UK, €15 in Europe & $20 in the USA.
In a previous post, I outlined how the BBC Radio 4 service on 198kHz on the Long Wave band was likely to close in the summer of 2025. It now seems as if the BBC Radio 4 Service on the Medium Wave band will stop a lot sooner.
These are the nine medium wave transmitters that are scheduled to close on the 15th of April 2024.
kHz - Station - Location - Power 603 BBC Radio 4 Newcastle upon Tyne 0.5KW 720 BBC Radio 4 Lisnagarvey nr Belfast 10KW 720 BBC Radio 4 Crystal Palace 0.24KW 720 Radio 4 Derry 0.25KW 756 BBC Radio 4 Redruth, Cornwall 2KW 774 BBC Radio 4 Enniskillen, Fermnanagh 0.5KW 774 BBC Radio 4 Plymouth 0.2KW 1449 BBC Radio 4 Aberdeen 2KW 1485 BBC Radio 4 Carlisle 0.8KW
The highest power one of these is the 10-kilowatt transmitter at Lisnagarvey near Belfast.
The BBC in a statement wrote.,.. "Effective 15th April, Radio 4 will no longer be available on medium wave. Medium wave listeners will need to retune their radio to alternative platforms."
Back in December, I carried out an experiment to find and record the peak of the Geminids meteor shower by listening to the GB3MBA 50 MHz beacon which is 500kms from my location. See post HERE
On the afternoon of 4th of January 2024, there was the peak of the Quadrantids meteor shower which tends to be very narrow but intense. This time, I just took some screenshots of the meteor reflections.
Introduction... Back in 2022, a new radio beacon called GB3MBA was put on air on the 50 MHz band and its primary purpose was carrying out meteor scatter experiments. Located near the town of Mansfield in the centre of England, the beacon runs 75-watts into a small Moxon antenna which beams straight up.
Unlike most amateur radio beacons, this one is basically a carrier that is on nearly all of the time which is exactly what is needed for meteor scatter experiments. The main coverage area is the UK itself but as I'm 502 kms from the beacon, I'm close enough for it to be of use.
For the Quadrantids meteor shower, I was using a Yaesu FT817 on USB as a receiver and the antenna was a 2-element Yagi in the attic of my house. The antenna was beaming about 120 degrees which is about 45 degrees off the beam heading for the beacon (The choice of beam heading is determined by the space in the attic and I wasn't trying to beam away from the beacon).
Quadrantids screen shots...
The image above shows the composite collection of seven different screenshots. As can be seen, there was plenty of evidence of pings and bursts from the GB3MBA beacon.
The images on the blog are quite small and a link to a larger version of the image is on Facebook HERE.
I'll use the more detailed example above to explain what you are looking at. The time is moving from right to left and you will notice the 30-second timestamps. As my receiver isn't GPS locked, I'm probably around 5 Hz off frequency which is ok.
If I was hearing the beacon directly, it would show up as a solid yellow line going across the centre of the screen. Instead, you are looking at the signal reflecting / refracting off the trail of electrons left behind by the meteor as it burnt up. As these electrons are in motion in different layers of the upper atmosphere, there is some doppler shift on the signal.
In the example above, the 50 MHz signal lasted for about 90-seconds.
The signal on the far right of the image above is one of my favourites. This is called an 'epsilon' echo as it twirls around. What causes such a complex pattern as opposed to the other 'smudges'?
The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is the national society for radio amateurs in the USA and is one of the largest if not the largest such organisation in the world. They also produce the QST magazine which is one of the largest amateur radio magazines in the world.
Back in July of 2023, they announced that they would be increasing their membership fees by between 20% to 71% at the start of 2024. In this post, I'll look at some of the changes.
Membership - US Members...
US members of the ARRL paid $49 per annum up to and including 2023. For that fee, they were able to receive the QST magazine by standard post. As of the 1st of January 2024, that membership fee now increases by 20% to $59 and for this, they will have access to only the online digital version of QST.
If US members wish to keep receiving QST by standard mail then they will have to pay $84, a 71% increase on their old subscription of $49.
US members who were getting QST by first class mail will see their subscription increase by 37.5% from $96 to $132.
Three year membership fees follow much the same pattern... 3-year membership with QST mailed out goes from $140 to $174 for membership and digital QST only, a jump of 24%. To keep getting QST by mail for 3-years, members will have to pay $249 instead of $140, a 71% jump.
Membership - International Members... As non-US members, it's probably fair to say that most international members have joined to get access to the QST magazine.
International members who currently get the digital version of QST will see their fees go up by 20% from $49 to $59. The 3-year option goes up by 24% from $140 to $174.
International members who currently get QST by standard mail will see their fees increase by 25% from $76 to $95. The 3-year option goes up by 30% from $217 to $282.
Big changes as numbers fall... The last increase in membership fees was 8-years ago in 2016 so some may feel that an increase is inevitable. I suspect the size of the jump this time though will be too much for some.
In 2022, the ARRL saw an unexpected 4% drop in membership numbers as can be seen above. This I presume was due to the cost of living crisis and inflation and for some, ARRL membership was something they could do without. This suggests that ARRL membership is sensitive to price and all of this happened well before the price increase at the start of 2024.
The ARRL membership numbers since 2001 are shown above. You can see the strong growth up until 2015 and then the drop once the membership fee was increased from $39 to $49.
In 2016, the membership fees were increased when the numbers were at a peak. That is in marked contrast to now when membership seems to be in decline. They have yet to announce the 2023 membership numbers and there may well be a mini-surge as people avail of the lower prices before the prices go up.
However, the latest stats from the FCC shows that the number of radio amateurs in the USA has dropped about 2% in 2022 and is back down to roughly what they were in 2018. It seems that a large recovery in ARRL membership in 2023 is unlikely.
Does the ARRL represent radio amateurs in the USA??... At the end of 2022, there were just over 769,000 amateur radio callsigns in the United States. The ARRL membership at the end of 2022 was 151,840. This means that just 19.7% of radio amateurs in the United States are members of the ARRL. Back in 2015, that figure was 23.2%.
This seems to me to be a very low figure and it does raise the question about how any organisation can claim to be a national organisation when they can only attract less than 20% of the total number of radio amateurs in their country.
If we were to look at the UK, there are about 101,000 licences on issue. Due to multiple licences, this in reality means that there are almost 70,000 licensed operators. The RSGB has about 21,200 members which is about 30% of the amateur radio population in the UK. This is in marked contrast to the figure for the ARRL.
UK members of the RSGB receive the RadCom magazine and have to pay £65 per annum ($83) which is similar to the new ARRL fee. Why does membership of the ARRL in the USA seem so poor compared to the RSGB in the UK?
Looking ahead???... With membership falling and a hike in membership, it seems likely that the next few years will be turbulent ones for the ARRL. It currently represents less than 20% of radio amateurs in the USA and that figure seems likely to keep dropping.
If the membership numbers drop a significant amount then that's going to put pressure on the finances of the organisation and it's likely a review of costs will be needed. It's obvious that a full colour printed magazine that is posted out to members is going to be increasingly more expensive and difficult in the future.
As for a solution?... There are a multitude of posts online with people complaining about the ARRL but there seem to be very few solutions. Increasing the membership fees seems like a short term fix but I suspect it's only delaying the inevitable. Sooner or later, they're going to have to look at costs and make cuts.
From my own perspective, I used to be an overseas member of the ARRL in the late 1990's and early 2000's. At the time, information about amateur radio was at a premium and the QST magazine was very informative.
Fast forward to today and we have a multitude of websites, blogs, podcasts, social media, YouTube, etc. The ARRL as a content creator now has to compete with all of these other sources which are mostly free. It's already hard enough to keep up with all of the information that's available online for free without having to pay to look at what's behind a paywall.
Video... In this video, ARRL Director of Marketing and Innovation Bob Inderbitzen, NQ1R, chats with Kevin Thomas, W1DED, host of W1DED WW Ham Radio on YouTube, about the recent survey of members where 20,000 members responded and about the ARRL itself.
In summary... It's in no-ones interest to have a weak ARRL. As can be seen at the recent ITU conference in Doha, some amateur radio bands are under threat and the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) needs strong member societies to support its work.
I suspect the next few years will be difficult ones for the ARRL as their membership seems likely to drop. They have an increasingly elderly membership base that wants things to stay the same in a world that is rapidly moving to digital.
It seems to me that that the next decade is likely to be a difficult one for the ARRL as they will have to make major changes to stay relevant.
One of the popular amateur radio award programmes is Summits on the Air (SOTA) and it's relatively easy for people to activate a peak as opposed to going to some exotic DX location.
Andy, MM0FMF has announced a new SOTA Challenge for the 28 MHz (10m) band for all of 2024. It's nice to see a specific challenge for the 10m band and hopefully, it will generate some more activity on this band now that we're near the peak of the solar cycle.
2024 10-metre SOTA Challenge
Andy MM0FMF writes... "Back in 2013/2014 we were coming to the top of Cycle 24 and we decided to have a challenge. The aim was to encourage activity on the 12m band. I chose 12m for a few reasons, it has almost identical propagation to 10, there’s no contests, it was a very underused band in SOTA, I could fit a 12m 1/4GP on my fibreglass pole. The last was important, I didn’t need to spend any extra money :wink: Huge fun was had by people who took part, much DX was worked. My most memorable QSOs were random chases by VK stations to the UK at lunchtime rather than greyline.
So now Cycle 25 it starting to show it means business and we enjoyed just how much fun can be had on the higher bands in the recent NA<>EU S2S activity day when the Sun produces SFI figures around 150 and we get people organised to be on the air at the same time.
It’s the right time to run another challenge. We’ve done 12m and we didn’t pick it again because we try to be inclusive on SOTA and I didn’t check 12m allocations worldwide last time. Not every licence class gets access to 12m, in some countries only the top licence types get access. But on 10m the situation is very different with most licence types giving some or complete access, more people can take part than on 12m.
The aim of the challenge is to get everyone using 10m a lot. Since 2013 we have added 95 new associations with many in South America, Asia and the Caribbean. So now there should always be DX for someone workable :o) (Don’t forget, EU is DX for some!)
Scoring will be done automatically by the database software. You just need to enter your activations and chases as normal, the software will note 10m QSOs and score them according to the rules below. Normal SOTA rules apply so if you do a multi-band activation, just enter it as normal and your normal SOTA results get updated and qualifying 10m QSOs get scored completely separately.
There will be a special 10m Challenge results page. But note, lots of you said you don’t want SOTA contests and we listened. There will not be an overall winner or association winners. The challenge results pages will be sorted alphabetically by callsign and you will be able to see how well you are doing . If you want you can compare your results with others to see if your equipment is as good or if you get a better score per activation etc. A certificate will be available showing your name, call, association and score.
The challenge runs from 0000Z January 1st 2024 to 2359Z December 31st 2024
Scoring for chasers: For every unique summit you chase on 10m you get a multiplier. For every unique activator you chase you get 1 chaser challenge point. Your final score is chaser challenge points * multipliers.
Scoring for activators: For every unique summit you activate on 10m you get a multiplier. For every unique chaser you work you get 1 activator challenge point. Your final score is activator challenge points * multipliers."
For more information about the Summits on the Air award programme, go to https://www.sota.org.uk/
