Operating QRP in the UKEICC 80m SSB Contest...1st Feb 2017

The SSB leg of the UKEICC 80m contest was held on Wednesday the 1st of February 2017 between 8pm and 9pm. As a test of a Yaesu FT-817 rig and as an experiment, I took part in it with just 5 watts into my 80m diplole.

I only managed to work 8 stations but I also didn't actually hear that many more anyway with my S7 noise level on the band.

All the stations I worked were within 500kms with the exception of GM3X who was about 750kms.

GW9J...IO72
GW4J...IO73
EI7CD...IO63
EI2KA...IO51
2E0KVJ...IO80
EI6JK...IO53
EI5KG...IO62
GM3X...IO88

Both EI5KF and F1FPL were quite strong but they couldn't hear my 5 watts. I could hear stations in Hungary, Slovenia, Germany and Sweden but it was pointless calling them as they were relatively weak at my end.

The whole contest seemed to be a tale of two halves. Conditions seemed reasonable in the first 30 minutes but the band seemed to collapse in the second half hour. It was almost as if something happened up in the ionosphere. The geomagnetic conditions are at a storm level at present so that might explain it (K index = 5).

Looking at the results and the comments, it seems as if everyone found the conditions to be awful. Still though, it was interesting to get 8 contacts with 5 watts.

Activity Levels for the Wild Atlantic Way Award... Jan 2017

From 1st January to 31st December 2017 Irish Radio Amateurs will be on air with nine special calls – EI11WAW through to EI99WAW.  Each call will be associated with one of the counties making up the Wild Atlantic Way.  Each call will have its own distinctive QSL card depicting a highlight of the county linked to the call.

As of the 31st of January 2017, the number of page views on QRZ.COM can be seen above. As you might expect, the number of page views should roughly reflect the activity levels of each station.

There has been quite a variation in activity levels for the month of January. The number of QSO's recorded in Clublog is shown below and roughly matches the QRZ.COM views.

* Note that some stations may not have updated all their contacts yet which would explain why perhaps EI11WAW has a lot more QRZ page views than recorded contacts.

Some calls like EI99WAW have been very active on both SSB and CW and on bands from 80m to 20m which allows a lot of people to work them....both near and far.

Others have been very quiet or else they have been up on the higher bands like 20m which makes it difficult for stations in the UK and Ireland to work them. Still though, it's early days and there are still 11 months left.

More info about the Wild Atlantic Way award in this previous post.

EI22WAW in the log

From 1st January to 31st December 2017 Irish Radio Amateurs will be on air with nine special calls – EI11WAW through to EI99WAW.  Each call will be associated with one of the counties making up the Wild Atlantic Way.  Each call will have its own distinctive QSL card depicting a highlight of the county linked to the call.

Today, I caught up with my fifth one...EI22WAW on 20m CW. There was a bit of a comedy of errors with this one. I was adjusting the morse key beforehand to try and get a smaller gap and sure enough, it jammed just before I gave a signal report! After some frantic adjusting, it got the report across ok.

The signals was quite weak but strong enough to make a contact when the European stations weren't calling.

Four more to go.

More info about the Wild Atlantic Way award in this previous post.

World Handball Championships in Jan 2017...TM57A, TM57D, TM57H & TM57N

The 25th World Handball Championships are being held in France from 11th to 29th January 2017 and there are four special event stations on the air ...TM57A, TM57D, TM57H and TM57N.

Today, I worked the 4th station on CW.

16/01/2017 ...TM57H ...3.5 MHz ... CW
18/01/2017 ...TM57A ...7 MHz ... CW
22/01/2017 ...TM57N ...7 MHz ... CW
24/01/2017 ...TM57D ...3.5 MHz ... CW

The four callsigns H A N D spell HAND and as you can see from the image above, the four QSL cards when assembled show a ball in the centre....i.e. Handball.

From the organisers website....
The 25th Handball World Championship will be held in France from 11th to 29th January.
The city of Metz, will receive in its Arena the teams of Spain, Slovenia, Macedonia, Iceland and Tunisia. AMRA was keen to participate in its own way at this event, so the codes TM57H - TM57A - TM57N and TM57D were allocated for the period from 15 to 29/01. The four codes thus forming HAND, a special QSL will be edited for each of these indicative and the four QSL will form a puzzle as below. We look forward to your participation.


The QSL manager is Marc F-11734 and they will QSL via the bureau. See QRZ.COM

Presentation by John EI7IG at the TAPR Digital Conference in the USA

In 2016, John Ronan EI7IG traveled to the ARRL-TAPR Digital Communication Conference in the US where he gave a presentation on using APRS (Amateur Packet Reporting System) to track vehicles and bikes on the Sean Kelly cycle event.

The video of the talk was put up on YouTube in the last week by Gary Pearce, KN4AQ as part of his Ham Radio Now video series.



In the talk, John outlines some of the technical issues and difficulties in covering this large cycle event and making sure that the emergency services can be deployed where they are needed.

Additional info...
1) Sean Kelly Tour
2) John EI7IG's website

EI33WAW in the log

From 1st January to 31st December 2017 Irish Radio Amateurs will be on air with nine special calls – EI11WAW through to EI99WAW.  Each call will be associated with one of the counties making up the Wild Atlantic Way.  Each call will have its own distinctive QSL card depicting a highlight of the county linked to the call.

Today, I caught up with my fourth one on 80m CW...EI33WAW. Five more to go.

More info about the Wild Atlantic Way award in this previous post.

EI77WAW in the log

From 1st January to 31st December 2017 Irish Radio Amateurs will be on air with nine special calls – EI11WAW through to EI99WAW.  Each call will be associated with one of the counties making up the Wild Atlantic Way.  Each call will have its own distinctive QSL card depicting a highlight of the county linked to the call.

Today, I caught up with my third one on 80m CW...EI77WAW. Six more to go.

More info about the Wild Atlantic Way award in this previous post.

Rough guide to activity levels for the Wild Atlantic Way callsigns

The Wild Atlantic Way award has been running since the 1st of January 2017 and already, a number of overseas stations have worked all 9 calls.

If we make the assumption that the more active a station is then the more views they will get on their QRZ.COM page, this is a rough breakdown of the activity levels of the WAW calls so far.

Results of the 2017 IRTS 80m Counties Contest on New Year's Day

The annual IRTS 80 metre contest was held on the 1st of January 2017 and the full results are now available HERE

The chart above shows how the number of entries have changed over the years. While they are down on the initial years, they have  increased since 2014. It's good to see that the entries for the SSB/CW section have reached an all time high and now make up roughly half of all entries.

Slim Jim Vertical Half-Wave for 27 MHz & 28 MHz

Another one from an old magazine article. This design is for a basic folded half-wave vertical for the 11m CB band on 27MHz but it can also be adapted very easily for 28Mhz or 29Mhz. For 10m operation, try reducing the half wave section to 5.10 metres and the quarter wave section to 2.53 metres.

It really is a case of experimenting and see how you get on. It's likely the biggest challenge will be the mechanical construction rather than adjusting the VSWR.

One particular advantage of this antenna is that the quarter wave tuning section effectively puts the radiating element higher above ground level. This fact alone can have a significant effect on the performance of the antenna as it begins to get clear of buildings, electricity wires and other clutter near ground level.

A lot of novice CBer's get fixated on 'advertised gain' and different types of antennas whereas they should be concentrating on getting a decent antenna up as high as possible.

While the Slim Jim won't be as good as say a Yagi beam up on a tower, it should still perform pretty well.

EI44WAW in the log

From 1st January to 31st December 2017 Irish Radio Amateurs will be on air with nine special calls – EI11WAW through to EI99WAW.  Each call will be associated with one of the counties making up the Wild Atlantic Way.  Each call will have its own distinctive QSL card depicting a highlight of the county linked to the call.

Today, I caught up with my second one on 80m CW...EI44WAW in County Mayo. Seven more to go.

More info about the Wild Atlantic Way award in this previous post.

Ideas for radio clubs...

It's pretty obvious that a lot of radio clubs in Ireland and in the UK have a declining membership and many are not attractive to newcomers.

One of the more active areas in the UK is in Essex and the Essex Ham website has plenty of ideas and tips on how to make clubs more attractive and relevant.

One of these is to have a skills night where there is something for everyone...newbie and experienced alike.

http://www.essexham.co.uk/skillsformula

It obviously may not work for all clubs but there is plenty of info on that site that clubs might find useful.

New website for the Duhallow Repeater Group

The Duhallow Repeater Group operates the 70cms repeater EI7SMR and the 4 metre Simplexer EI4SMR on Seefin in County Cork. I have put together a basic website for the group which gives some details about their systems.

You can visit it at http://duhallowrepeatergroup.blogspot.ie/

2017 Wild Atlantic Way Award

From 1st January to 31st December 2017 Irish Radio Amateurs will be on air with nine special calls – EI11WAW through to EI99WAW.  Each call will be associated with one of the counties making up the Wild Atlantic Way.  Each call will have its own distinctive QSL card depicting a highlight of the county linked to the call.

QSL requests via Clublog or the Buro.  Requests for a Direct QSL via Clublog or to EI6AL enclosing $2, or €2 via paypal to payments@irts.ie

A Certificate will be made available for download to any station that works all nine calls,  any band any mode.  Apply by email to QSL manager EI6AL giving name and call.  A certificate can also be sent by post – send €5 ($5) to cover postage either through Clublog, direct to EI6AL or via paypal to payments@irts.ie

.My first QSO for 2017 in the log :o) ......Dave EI4BZ operating as EI99WAW on 80m CW at 00:10 UTC. Eight to go.

Old IRTS Newsletters now available...

The Irish Radio Transmitters Society is the national body representing radio amateurs in Ireland and they produce several newsletters for members throughout the year. While the newsletter isn't in the same league as say Radcom or QST, it is in many ways more relevant locally as it relates to Irish issues.

The IRTS have now put up an archive of old newsletters from 1988 to 2000 on their website.

Just go to their website... http://www.irts.ie/ ... and look for the Publications Library.

Members of the IRTS also have access to all the IRTS newsletters from 2001 to the most current one as well. Taken together, the newsletters represent almost 30 years of the history of amateur radio in Ireland from the late 1980's.

The quality of the IRTS newsletter has changed greatly over the years. Before the late 80's, it was little more than some copies of typed text. With the advent of proper desk top publishing software, it improved hugely in the 90's before colour was finally introduced in mid 2008.

As of the end of 2016, some 27% of IRTS members opt for the PDF version which is available from the IRTS website. This does of course mean that fewer physical copies must be printed and posted out which results in a saving for the Society.

For me, I just prefer the digital version as it means I don't have a physical copy that I need to store or dispose of. I can also zoom in on diagrams and photos on the PDF document allowing me to see things in more detail, something which is of course impossible in the printed version.

I just upload the PDF version to my own private online Google Drive account where they are all available for easy access. This is a screenshot from that site...

Looking at the annual financial statements for the IRTS, roughly half of the Society's annual expenditure is spent on the publishing and posting of the newsletters to members. In an age of high speed broadband and smart phones, perhaps more IRTS members should consider opting for the electronic PDF version?

It seems to me an obvious way to help the IRTS to reduce its costs and help maintain the current membership fee.

Good tropo conditions on 2m & 70cms...Wed 28th Dec 2016

The current high pressure system over the country resulted in some fine conditions on the VHF bands on Wed 28th December 2016. The local Cork repeater on 145.750 MHz seemed to be active with stations for most of the day while a few more distant repeaters were heard as well.

The opening seemed to favour the sea paths and the most consistent repeater all day was GB3WR at about 400kms. I heard this back in November but it was probably stronger this time around with a max signal of about 5/2 on my attic antenna.

A new one for me was hearing the F1ZEE repeater in Brittany also on 145.600 MHz. This has a very distinctive 'di dah dit' sound between overs with the 'dah' at a higher audio frequency compared to the two 'dits'.

The distance was 518kms which is the furthest 2m signal that I have heard so far in 2016. I was suprised to have heard it at all considering the antenna is in my attic.

According to QRZ, the repeater is at 300m ASL with a very good view towards EI.

Relais R0 de l'ARACA22  145,600Mhz en emission shift -600Khz , déclenchement 1750Hz
316m ASL installé depuis 1978 sur le site de Menez Kerespez , 22810 Plougonver, c'est le premier relais installé en bretagne. Antenne 6db COMET à 8m du sol. TX et RX Motorola MC Micro , 40w à l'emission. Responsable du site : F1LHC

It is also part of a larger repeater network in Brittany covering 10m, 6m, 2m and 70cms. Info here... https://f5nlg.wordpress.com/2015/12/28/nouveau-reseau-french-repeater-network/

70cms.......There were two repeaters heard...GB3CH on 433.050MHz and GB3CM on 433.200MHz.

While GB3CH was just above the noise, GB3CM was pretty good at times and got up as high as 5/4. It was also the most consistent signal and was there for a lot of the day.

Other than listening, I had just one contact with GW0PLP in South-West Wales on 145 MHz FM. While Don had 90w into a 5/8 GP on his house, I had 50w into a Slim-Jim vertical in the attic. While we made a contact, the signals were at best 5/2 so it might be time to think about an outdoor antenna for 2017.

Irish radio amateurs gain secondary allocation at 5.3MHz

The Irish Radio Transmitters Society have just announced that Irish radio amateurs can use the WRC-15 band of 5.3515 MHz to 5.3665 MHz with immediate effect. No application is necessary and the power limit is 15 watts. This is very good news for anyone with an interest in the 60 metre band.

The following was announced by Séan, EI7CD...

ComReg has just today published an amended version of the Amateur Station Guidelines in Document ComReg 09/45R2. The main revision is that the WRC-15 band of 5351.5 to 5366.5 kHz has been released with immediate effect on a secondary basis. No application or fee is necessary for this segment. The power is 15 watts PEP (12dBW) measured at the output of the transmitter or amplifier. All modes including digimodes may be used. The WRC-15 decision was for 15 watts EIRP and this will be taken up with ComReg. The Society recommends that USB be used for voice as has been the convention on this band and as used by the primary user and that the provisional IARU band plan be used:

5351.5 - 5354.0 kHz CW, Narrow band Modes
5354.0 - 5366.0 kHz All modes USB for voice
5366.0 - 5366.5 kHz weak signal narrow band modes.

This allocation does not affect the availability of the existing channels centred on 5280, 5300, 5332, 5348, 5400 and 5405 kHz. Special authorisation is still required for these channels at an annual licence fee of €30. Lets hope for some more activity on 5 MHz to help our case for an increased allocation.

Seán EI7CD IRTS/ ComReg Liaison

Up to now, Irish amateurs had to apply to use the spot frequencies of 5.280 MHz; 5.300 MHz; 5.332 MHz; 5.348MHz; 5.400 MHz and 5.405 MHz

The relevant document can be downloaded from the Comreg website HERE

For the moment, the Irish allocation is different from our neighbours in the UK. See HERE

UK Radio Spectrum Review Shows Increased Noise on VHF Bands

Ofcom is the organisation that is responsible for radio regulation in the UK and they have just released a document for a review of the UHF spectrum from 410 to 470 MHz. While most of the report covers the UHF spectrum as expected, they do make a reference to the increase noise levels on the lower VHF bands.

In the chart below, 'Band 1' covers 55 to 68 MHz while 'VHF Low' covers 68 to 87.5 MHz.

In the past, the assumed noise floor for radios was -116dBm and the planned coverage area of a radio system was -104dBm, i.e. 12 dB over the noise floor.

What Ofcom have found is that the actual noise floor is currently 12dB higher than previously thought. As a result, the planned service signal level must now be -92dBm.

This higher noise level is likely due to a variety of sources. Just think of the extra electrical power lines, increased use of switch mode power supplies in electrical equipment and the vast multitude of computer and IT systems. Taken all together, they result in a large increase in electrical noise especially in urban areas.

What this means for amateur radio is that bands like 4 metres (70 MHz) and 6 metres (50 MHz) are likely to be much noisier than they used to be in the past. Higher VHF and UHF bands are not effected as badly. It's likely that the extra noise levels also extend down to the higher HF frequencies like 14 to 28 MHz as well.

This higher noise floor as announced by Ofcom is in contrast to what was said by Comreg, the Irish licensing authority. In response to a submission by the Irish Radio Transmitters Society, they said the following in a report published in mid-2016....

2:17 ComReg notes that no evidence was provided by the IRTS to support its assertion that the noise floor is increasing and, further, ComReg observes that its monitoring activities do not indicate a significant increase in the noise floor on the whole;

Perhaps the noise levels in the Ofcom report are based on the very large urban areas in the UK but it's hard to imagine that the noise levels haven't increased substantially in the various Irish cities and towns in the last 20 years.

Links...
1) Ofcom Strategic Reeview of UHF Band 1 and 2 410 to 470 MHz
2) Comreg Radio Spectrum Management Strategy 2016 to 2018

Time to brush up on the CW...

Opening to the Indian Ocean on 28 MHz...Wed 14th Dec 2016

Wednesday the 24th of December was another one of those days where the 28 MHz band seemed completely dead but early in the morning, I received 3 separate transmissions on WSPR from FR1GZ on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

It's almost as if the North-South path is there on a lot of days but there just aren't any stations there to exploit it.

The Solar flux is down around 72 and the K index is a 1.