Line of Sight to the DMR repeater EI7CDD

After a spell of four years off the radio, I got on air again in late 2016. Once I came back, I found out there were some new developments in the world of digital radio with D-Star, Yaesu System Fusion and DMR. I read up on these but at that stage at the start of 2017, there were no digital repeaters anywhere near me in Cork.

After another short spell off the radio from May to December 2017, I found out in January of 2018 that a new digital repeater with the call sign EI7CDD had been installed in West Waterford in September of 2017.

The new repeater was located on a 300m high hill called Carronadavderg in West Waterford which just so happens to be line of sight to my house!

Carronadavderg is high enough so that it is visible for me over the hills to the north of Killeagh. The repeater is 45kms / 28 miles away.

On any sort of clear day, I can see Carronadavderg on the horizon. This is a photo I took today with a small telephoto lens on the camera. The golf course in the foreground is about 2-3kms away.

The white below the summit of Carronadavderg is a layer of snow while the darker summit is covered in trees.

On closer inspection, some white microwave dishes can be barely seen on the summit when the sun was shining there. The houses in this view are some 25kms distant.

The view was a little better when the dark masts were contrasted against a bright background. I can pick out six masts in total...three large ones and three small.

Pretty amazing what the camera could pick up from 45kms away!

The main thing of course is that it is line of sight from here which allows me to access the DMR repeater with 1w from a TYT MD-380 handheld with a whip antenna.

When I check the Last Heard list for EI7CDD, I seem to have a signal of S4-6 when I stand next to a window here in the house so I can get into the DMR system fine.

IRTS Membership Stats...End of Dec 2017

In the most recent newsletter from the Irish Radio Transmitters Society (IRTS), they stated that there was 927 members in the society at the end of 2017. I had a look at the previous membership levels and I put together this chart...

As the chart shows, there was four years of decline from 2009 to 2013 but it has leveled out since then. While the chart may look pretty dramatic, the range from the highest to lowest point is in the region of 8.5% so it's not huge. In the last decade (2008 to 2017), the IRTS membership has declined by 5.8%.

Another interesting stat from the newsletter is that there was 1729 EI call signs at the end of 2017. Back at the end of the year 2000, it was 1726...almost identical. I suspect that a lot of people would have expected the number of EI call signs to have dropped since the start of the new millennium but that doesn't seem to be the case.

One worrying aspect is that the number of EI calls that are members of the IRTS is dropping. The chart below shows that 44.9% of all EI callsigns are members of the IRTS as of the end of 2017.

Considering that the IRTS membership has dropped since the year 2000 and the number of licences is largely the same, the overall percentage of EI calls who are members must have dropped.

As it says on the IRTS website..."IRTS is the national society for radio amateurs and experimenters in Ireland.  Its purpose is to promote the study of radio communications, to encourage radio experimentation and to provide services to its members."

It would be nice if more people with licences supported what is an organisation run by volunteers on behalf of its member. €30 per annum is a very modest fee.

Links...
1) IRTS website

High Tech Morse Code Safety Boots!

There was a news item on the BBC news website today about some new safety boots that use morse code for signalling purposes!

According to the manufacturers..."The shoes holder can “press” this “button” with his toes to start a sequence (composed of 2 symbols: “short” or “long”, an alphabet derived from MORSE code). This differs from other smart PPE that do not allow interactions with the device without using hands. Right and left vibrating motors, as well as a 90dB buzzer, allow the shoes to communicate with the holder using short and long vibration or beeps too. For instance, this system allows holder to acknowledge when he receives a message to leave immediately an area. Or he can send a “MAY DAY” message to alert his employer or colleagues. To handle extreme situations (such as broken leg), a second external membrane is also available by hand."

Links...
1) BBC News item
2) Manufacturers website

New 70cms repeater in West Wales...

Over the weekend, I was using EchoLink and I came across a new Welsh repeater there.... GB3UP-R in Fishguard on the west coast of Wales.

I had a chat with the repeater keeper Simon GW6TKK and it turns out that the repeater has been up and running since August 2017.

Here are the basic specs...

Keeper/NoV holder - Simon GW6TKK
Channel - RU73  input Frequency -  438.5125 MHz  Output frequency 430.9125 MHz
Access - CTCSS Tone F 94.8 Hz
Echolink Node GB3UP-R

The repeater is located in a domestic house about 300ft asl on the south side of the town of Fishguard and is heavily screened by hills to the south and east. This is shown in the coverage map which is pretty small over land areas but would be much bigger over the Irish Sea if it was shown. It's very likely that it can be worked from Ireland under lift conditions so it might making a note of it.

The repeater website is http://sparks.btck.co.uk/FishguardRepeater

Cork Radio Club in the SSB Field Day Contest...Sept 1999

I came across this video by accident while I was looking for something else. Despite the fact it is over 18 years ago, field days today are still pretty much the same.

EI DMR Registrations...

A few weeks back, I got a registration number for using DMR (Digital Mobile Radio). Considering DMR has its roots in the commercial world, I think that this will become the de facto standard for digital radio on the VHF amateur bands in the future...as opposed to D-Star or Fusion.

I was curious to see how many EI stations have registered to do and I put together the chart above. The 2017 peak coincided with articles in the IRTS newsletter.

The chart below shows the total number of DMR registrations for EI calls at the end of each quarter up until the end of 2017...

As of the 9th of February 2018, there are 106 EI calls registered on DMR. Needless to say, not all of them are active or may even have equipment but it does show a growing interest in this digital mode.

Update 9th March 2018 : Using the 'Heard Users' function, 47 of the 108 registered users have been heard using DMR. That's roughly 44%.

Free PDF articles from the UK Microwave Group

This might be of interest to those who operate on the microwave bands. Backscatter is a compendium of the best technical articles that have been in Scatterpoint, the UK Microwave Group newsletter over the period 1999 to 2006.

The original publication in 2008 was an A5 size book of 445 pages and is an excellent reference with many articles on all aspects of microwaves.

It is now freely available as pdf chapters via the link below:- http://www.microwavers.org/?backscatter.htm

Free HackSpace Magazines...

This might be of interest to anyone using Rasberry Pi or Arduino boards. HackSpace are offering their magazines for free via this website... https://hackspace.raspberrypi.org/issues

There are plenty of radio related projects out there that have these systems at their core.

EI-GI Packet Map for 1994

I recently came across this old map of the various packet nodes in Ireland back in 1994 (Click on the image to see the full size version).

In today's world of smartphones and tablets, it's easy to forget about what a big deal packet radio was back then. In 1994, most people weren't on the Internet and the only source of information was via email at work or via magazines and books.

The killer 'app' at the time if it could be called that, was the DX-Cluster. When it was working properly, it allowed people to see for the first time what was happening on the bands and what others were hearing.

From what I remember, I started using packet radio back in the early 90's with an old DIGITAL computer terminal, a PK-88 TNC and a really old PYE 2m radio.

1994 may well have marked the peak of packet radio in Ireland. A few years later as more people got access to the Internet, the packet radio network went into decline. The 1200 bits per second speed back then seemed fine at the time but it was arcane compared to say a dial up modem let alone the megabit fibre connections of today.

Today, packet is used mainly for APRS (Automatic Packet/Position Reporting System) where stations sent out an identification bursts every few minutes. A map of Irish stations on APRS can be seen HERE.

Certificate for the Dutch PACC Contest

Slowly getting back on air again after a long break of about 9 months. In the meantime, a certificate arrived in the post for the PACC contest that I had entered last February.

EI call signs and the missing 'FU's

When licencing authorities in various countries are issuing amateur radio call signs, they tend to avoid ones that might be associated with bad language or any inappropriate word. These would usually be 3 letter words that would be part of the suffix after the number.

In Ireland, there is less of a chance of this happening as the Class A calls have just two letters and the Class B calls all end in B.

I heard of the following story some time back but I never knew if it was true or not.

Back in the mid 1980's, one person from Cork kept ringing the then Department of Communications about getting a licence once he had passed the 12 word per minute morse test. The Radio Experimenters licence as it was back then would have been a very small part of the workload for the staff in the Department and it probably got very annoying for someone there to have someone from Cork constantly ringing about his licence.

He was eventually issued the call sign EI3FU.

So back to the inappropriate calls. The suffix FU could also be seen as shorthand for 'F*** YOU'.....You can fill in the blanks yourself! :o)

It could be seen as someone in the Department sending a subtle message to the recipient,,,,,,and they even issued the number 3 to let the person know the number of letters missing ;o)

It was hard to know if the story was true as while the current call book only shows one FU suffix, others might have gone off the air in the meantime.

That was until recently! The IRTS published some old newsletters on their website in March of 2017 including an old EI call book from 1986. All of the late F call signs would have been new then so they would all be shown.

Upon examination, sure enough there is a pattern. From EI2 to EI9, all of the suffixes are listed... FQ, FR, FS, FT.......FV, FX, FY and FZ. All there except for FU......except of course for EI3FU! :o))

It seems as if there was someone with a mischievous sense of humour working in the Deptartment back in the 1980's.

9N7EI (Nepal) worked on 30m & 40m

In mid-March of 2017, there was an Irish expedition to Nepal where the 12 man team operated as 9N7EI. They were on air from the 10th of March to the 19th of March with a stated objective of reaching 30,000 contacts. In the end, they managed 30,384 with 12,025 unique call signs.

This is a breakdown of their contacts by band...

With the Solar Flux down around 70 and with no sunspots on the sun, there were very poor conditions on 28MHz. The maximum number of contacts were logged on 18 MHz.

What's also noticeable was just how important CW is when the conditions are poor with the mode making up 57% of all contacts.

From my own experience, the signals from 9N7EI were pretty weak and the pile ups seemed huge. It might be fine for someone with a beam and an amplifier but it's another story with just an 80m dipole at a low height and 100 watts.

I listened on and off for them over the first week but I had no hope of cracking any pile up. I really didn't have any interest in sitting at the radio for an hour calling in the hope I'd be heard. It was more of a case that while it would be nice to work them, I wouldn't be too bothered if I didn't.

On the 17th of March, the conditions on the HF bands seemed above average. I had worked 5U5R on 17m and 9G5X on 12m during the afternoon and later that night, I came across 9N7EI on 30m calling CQ at 22:09 UTC. The CW signal was really weak and was dipping in and out of the noise. I put on the headphones, waited for their signal to come out of the noise and I got them first call.

Just after midnight, I came across them again on 40m. Again, weak and buried in the noise. I had noticed before that when I was doing ground wave experiments with EI6AK, my signal on 40m with a CB vertical half wave seemed to be reasonable. It seems to work as a short loaded vertical. So I tried it and 9N7EI seemed slightly stronger on receive. I matched it with the ATU and again, I played the waiting game and called them when they came out of the noise. It took a few calls but I got them eventually. I must have been really weak at their end so fair play to whoever was there for listening to signals buried in the noise.

I think that because the band was just about open, the signals were coming in at a low angle. The high angle of the 80m dipole wasn't great so the vertical CB antenna had the slight edge with the lower angle of radiation. The gain of the antenna must have been several dB down though on a proper 40m vertical. A quarter wave on 40m is 10m. The CB half wave vertical antenna is 5 metres in length and it has no ground plane system to speak of.

This is the VoaCap prediction for the band at the time of the contacts. Seems like the path between EI and 9N wasn't the best.

Three things struck me about the contact.

1) The signals were so weak that SSB would have been impossible. It was only possible by using CW.

2) The contacts were at 22:09 and 00:14. A lot of the Europeans might have gone to bed at that stage which helped.

3) I wonder if people are prepared to listen to a signal that is buried in the noise. Sometimes it seems as if people are just attracted to the strongest signals....a bit like moths to a flame. How many will sit and listen to a signal buried in the noise and wait for it to get strong enough? This thought struck me later that day when I noticed a EA9/DL... station with a huge pile up. A bit too big for just an EA9 station. The one thing that he had was a big signal.

In the end, a total of 71 EI stations managed to work 9N7RI with several on different bands and modes. They are shown below......

Expedition website... https://9n7ei.com/

Spanish Award...14th Antarctic Activity Week...February 2017

Back in late February, a bunch of Spanish special event stations popped up on the HF bands to mark the 14th Annual Antarctic Activity Week. It ran from the 18th to the 26th of the month. It seemed a bit strange that special event stations in Spain should be marking an Antarctic week. Perhaps it's because of the Spanish research stations located on the continent?

It really was very well organised with 9 stations on air and an excellent support website where logs were being constantly uploaded.... https://antarctica.ure.es/

Of all the websites dedicated to radio awards, this one is certainly one of the best.

These were the 9 stations...

I like the one with the Polar Bear......especially as there are none in the Antarctic! :o))

The top award was the Platinum which required working all 9 stations which wasn't too difficult.

I worked all the stations on CW and made an effort to work them on as many bands as I could.

AO5ANT was one of the hardest to work as the DX cluster shows that there was little or no 80m CW activity and he only appeared on 30m for a few hours on the 17th. EH5ANT was only on 20m CW for 2 days.

One of the interesting results of chasing these stations was that I learnt something about propagation. Notice how there is almost a complete lack of stations on 17m (18 MHz). I could hear them sometimes but they were very weak.

The centre of Spain is about 1,500kms from the south coast of Ireland. 1,500kms seems to be fine for signals on 14MHz and below but too close for 18MHz and 21MHz.

This was the propagation prediction map at the time...

It clearly shows that while 20m (14 MHz) was open to Spain from Ireland, the distance was too short for 17 and 15m. I believe that EG5ANT may have been in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa so it's probably no suprise that he was the only one I worked on 17m. The distance in that case was close to 2,000kms.

On the top 100 lists on the website, I was the only EI listed. It's interesting that the many of those in the top 10 were far enough away (2000kms+) to make use of the openings on 17 and 15m. i.e. Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, etc.

Rules..
Diplomas will be awarded in four different categories depending on the number of special stations contacted by the applicant (or received in case of SWLs)
BRONZE DIPLOMA... For contacts with 3 different Special Event stations, whatever the mode or band used.
SILVER DIPLOMA... For contacts with 5 different Special Event stations, whatever the mode/band.
GOLD DIPLOMA... For contacts with 7 different Special Event stations, whatever the mode/band.
PLATINUM DIPLOMA... For contacts with ALL 9 different Special Event stations, whatever the mode/band.

Solar Forecast...9th March 2017

Ever since the 1st of March, the conditions on the HF bands have been pretty poor. 21 MHz struggles to open and even the signals on 7 and 14 MHz have been weak. On several occasions, I've had to make sure I didn't have the attenuator switched in.

It looks as if a quiter side of the sun is coming into view which should improve things.

Results of the IRTS 80m Evening Counties Contest...Feb 2017

The IRTS 80 Metres Evening Counties contest was held on Tuesday the 21st of February. It was only one hour long and ran from 8pm to 9pm (20:00-21:00 UTC).

The results have just been published....click HERE

A total of 35 station logs were submitted which accounted for 781 QSOs.

I stayed on cw for the duration of the contest and this was my result...

Results:  80 Metres Evening Counties Contest, 21st February 2017
Total Score calculation: Entrant in EI/GI
Total Valid QSOs: 16
CW QSOs with EI/GI stations: 10*8=80
CW QSOs with stations outside EI/GI: 6*2=12
QSO Points: 92, Multipliers: 6
Total Score: 552

Out of the 32 counties in Ireland, 11 were not in anyone's log...
Missing Counties (11)... CARLOW, CAVAN, GALWAY, LEITRIM, LIMERICK, LONGFORD, OFFALY, ROSCOMMON, SLIGO, TYRONE, WICKLOW

Some are small counties and might be expected to be missing. But Galway and Limerick???

F2 Opening on 28 MHz to Africa on Wed 1st March 2017

With the Solar Flux Index down around 75, the 10 metre band is more or less dead every day at the moment. It was a bit of a suprise on the 1st of March 2017 when signals from Africa appeared on the band.

The first signal I heard was TR8CA in Gabon on 28 MHz SSB and later on 29 MHz FM. This was followed soon after by S01WS in the Western Sahara who I worked on cw.

I could hear these stations working plenty of Europeans and Americans so it was obviously a good opening. When I saw TR8CA being spotted by LA and SM stations in Norway and Sweden, then I knew something really unusual was happening. I suspected some sort of pre-auroral enhancement and the RSGB news a few days later confirmed this...

We were pleased to get the HF propagation prediction pretty much spot on last week. While Monday and Tuesday were reasonably settled, Wednesday saw the effects of solar material from a large coronal hole as it hit the Earth. The K-index leapt to five around lunchtime and there were reports of HF openings up to 10 metres. This was probably a pre-auroral enhancement, but it didn’t last too long.

This is what the K index looked like just before and after the event...

As you can see, nice and low early on the 1st of March and then the K index climbs to 7.

As is common with these type of events, the HF bands were very poor in the following days with 18 MHz just about open. 21 MHz and 28 MHz were dead.

The map below shows TR8CA and S01WS in relation to my location.

S01WS in the Western Sahara was about 2,900kms and the ideal distance for one hop F2 propagation on 28 MHz. TR8CA at about 6000kms was probably 2 x F2 layer hops so it was an interesting one to hear.

The thing about the 10 metre band is that you can never be too sure when it will open. When the Solar Flux Index is down around 70-80, it should be closed but then events like this allow the band to open, especially on North-South paths.

UKEICC 80m SSB Contest...Wed 1st March 2017

The UKEICC run short one hour contests on 80m which are ideal as they don't take up much time.

Back at the start of February, I was on for one of the SSB legs and I managed to work 8 stations with my 5 watts into an 80m dipole. At the time, I wasn't set up properly to log stations and submit an entry within the space of an hour. In hindsight, this was a pity as there is a multiplication factor of 4 for anyone working a QRP station on 5 watts or less.

The next SSB leg was on the 1st of March 2017 and I worked 18 stations this time around, again with 5 watts. Even though I started 10 minutes late, conditions seemed much better than last time and the map below shows the locators worked...

I tried calling CQ a few times but it's hard to have much of a presence on the band with 5 watts. Instead, all of the stations I worked were as a result of calling them.

The two furthest stations that I worked were PE4BAS in JO33 and SM5CSS in JO89. I was also their best DX and the multiplication factor of 4 for them for working a QRP station would have given them a good few extra points. As can be seen below, they finished 2nd and 3rd out of 44 entries in the Low Power (100w or less) Unconnected section.

Low Power - Unconnected

  Call Pwr Grid Raw Dupe Bust NIL Good Total -- Best DX --
  QSOs QSOs Pts Call Km
1 SO7BIT L JO91 47 0 2 0 45 209 EI5KF 1915
2 SM5CSS L JO89 36 0 0 0 36 202 EI7GL 1853
3 PE4BAS L JO33 61 2 0 0 59 187 EI7GL 1107

I heard several strong French stations but none calling CQ. I got an 'EI7??' back from DL8UD in JO43 but I was just too weak to complete a QSO. Strangely enough, I don't remember hearing any GM stations from Scotland...so maybe it was just chance?

All in all, it was really interesting to see just how far 5 watts can go.

Results on UKEICC website.

Entry for the French HF SSB Championships

Back at the end of January 2017, I put in an entry to support the French HF CW Championships. That time, I managed 138 QSO's spread out from 80m to 15m.

The SSB leg of the French HF Championships were held last weekend so I decided to concentrate on 80m only. This has the advantage that the band would only be open to France at certain times so it wouldn't take up the whole weekend.

France from my location is between 500kms and 1500kms. That's close enough to make contacts possible on 80m SSB but far enough away that making contacts can still be a challenge. I guess I really just wanted to see what could I work on 80m SSB with 100 watts into a half wave dipole about 5 to 7 metres above ground level.

Some observations.....

1) Many of the French stations struggled to hear my 100 watts. I have no doubt that some were using amplifiers and using a lot more power than me. I think another major factor though was that the French stations would have much higher interference levels than me. Signals from other stations on adjacent frequencies would be much stronger for them because of the shorter range. They also have signals arriving from all directions where as I have nothing from the West and only have to cope with interference from signals in the UK and the near continent.

2) I expected to make around 40-50 SSB contacts on 80m. In the end, I managed 111 which was nice.

3) I expected that the bulk of contacts would be in the 500km to 1000km distance. In fact, I managed to work most of  France. These are the departments that I worked....

While the majority of missing departments were in the 1000km to 1500km range, I still got a good spread.

4) The strongest signal was F5MUX in Brittany. This was no doubt due to the 500km distance and the sea path for reflections.

5) It's only when I checked the distances on the map that it became obvious what a big country France really is. It seems odd how someone in Brittany can be only 500kms from Ireland and still be 1000kms from the South-East of France.

6) The path to France on 80m was open from about 30-45 minutes before sunset. Any earlier and the signals were too weak as the D layer in the ionosphere absorbed too much of the signal. It might be possible to work someone earlier on say a quiet band but not in a contest....not with my set up anyway. The same applied 30-45 minutes after sunrise.

7) In contrast to the CW contest, I used the SD contest logging programme for the SSB contest. It made things so much easier as it makes checking for potential duplicate contacts so much faster. The only problem I had with it was that it wouldn't accept TK5KP in Corsica as a valid contact with points and multiplier. After the contest, I tried closing and re-opening the programme and editing that contact but to no avail. When I put in a dummy French QSO in its place, it worked ok. I then replaced the dummy French callsign with the TK5KP qso, it accepted it fine. I'm not sure what was wrong but it worked out in the end.

8) Post contest, I had to edit the Cabrillo log file like I did for the CW contest so that the French website would accept it. Other than that, the entry process was simple.

Overall, the 'Coupe de REF' French HF Championships contest seemed to be a pretty good one as contests go. It was also my first SSB contest in about 15 years ;o)

Additional info...
1) French HF Contest website

EI6AK - - EI6BA - - EI7BA - - EI5FK

Pictured at a recent birthday celebration...Charlie EI5FK, John EI6AK, John EI7BA and Tom EI6BA.

Charlie EI5FK has been quite on the radio scene of late but was one of the top VHF operators in the country for well over 20 years. Charlie has worked anything and everything on the VHF & UHF bands from 50 MHz to 432 MHz.

John EI6AK is resident on 40 metres where he's always a big signal and has worked the world on the band.

John EI7BA is one of the top DX-ers in the country and is active from 6m to 160m. If there's an expedition somewhere, you can be sure 7BA will probably work them on more bands than anyone else.

Tom EI6BA is not on air at present but was very active in the VHF contest scene before when he would set up a station on some of the high spots around Cork.

Photo courtesy of John, EI6AK.

Award Cert for the Wild Atlantic Way Award

On Friday the 17th of February 2017, I worked EI11WAW on 80m cw and this was the last one that I needed for the Wild Atlantic Way Award.

According to the awards manager Dave EI6AL, over 70 certificates have been issued at this stage and this was the first one to an EI station.

It's also the first one that has been endorsed for all contacts on CW as this wasn't available up to now. The other endorsements available from now on will be for SSB and Digital.

These are the bands that I used to contact the 9 WAW stations...

EI11WAW...CW...80m
EI22WAW...CW...20m
EI33WAW...CW...80m
EI44WAW...CW...80m
EI55WAW...CW...20m & 40m
EI66WAW...CW...80m
EI77WAW...CW...17m, 20m, 40m & 80m
EI88WAW...CW...20m
EI99WAW...CW...20m, 30m & 80m

What has been interesting about looking for these stations on the HF bands over the last 7 weeks is that I actually learnt something about propagation.

1) I had assumed that I could work EI stations on 80m at almost any time. That wasn't the case. With a low solar flux and the daytime critical frequency only getting up as high as 5.5 MHz, the MUF at night dropped pretty low. This had the effect of creating a skip zone on 80m so that I couldn't work other EI stations that were too close.

2) I had assumed that working other EI stations on 20m or 17m would be very difficult. I'm not sure if it was weak Sporadic-E or F2 backscatter but I could often hear the WAW stations on 14MHz and 18 MHz. The signals were pretty weak....down at a kind of level where a contact was possible on CW but not on SSB.

Overall, it looks like it is a very successful awards scheme and is certainly getting a lot of interest. If 70+ stations have already applied for the award after just 7 weeks, then surely that figure will be in the hundreds by the time the award scheme finishes at the end of 2017.

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