Sporadic-E on 28 MHz... 5th & 6th Oct 2018

After a month messing about on the lower HF bands, I'm back on 28 MHz again. Sure enough, there is still some Sporadic-E about even in October...

The signals were mostly weak but the band was still open. The kind of conditions where most HF operators would declare the 10 metre band dead but those that know the band know better.

The signal from Argentina is pretty typical at this time of year. There are probably F2 conditions between areas like Spain and South America and the weak Sporadic-E conditions allow stations further north to hear the signals.

Four days of FT8 on 40m... End Sept 2018

A week ago, I had a post up about the results of listening to WSPR signals for a week on 40 metres (7 MHz). I repeated the test by spending 4 days listening to FT8 signals on 40 metres and the results were pretty similar.

The charts are for roughly 24 hours from noon to noon. Antenna used... Doublet which is a full wave on 40m. Only 4-7m above the ground though.

The first obvious difference is the sheer number of stations using FT8 compared to WSPR.

South Africa to consider using 54-68 MHz for digital broadcasting??

There was a news item on the Southgate Amateur Radio News website today titled "South Africa considers Band I DRM+ broadcasting".

The news item went on to say that..."South Africa may be opening the door to DRM+ Broadcasting in low-band VHF 54-68 MHz ".

However, if you read of the material in more depth then it looks as if the South African government are exploring ways of replacing analogue FM radio with digital versions.

The directive says: "In the Very High Frequency (VHF) bands I & II, the standard Digital Radio Mondiale Plus (DRM +) is considered to be a candidate standard that can co-locate and co-exist with existing frequency modulation (FM) analogue technologies.

In the VHF band Ill, the standards Digital Audio Broadcasting Plus (DAB +), Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (T -DMB) and Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting for Terrestrial Sound Broadcasting (ISDB -TSB) are considered candidate technologies for the introduction of DSB in the band after the Analogue Switch -Off (ASO) of terrestrial analogue television services

ACKNOWLEDGING that the licensing approach in VHF Band Ill can be commenced as soon as possible as there is already an ITU co- ordinated DSB radio frequency allocation of 16 MHz (214 -230 MHz) incorporated in the National Radio Frequency Plan (NRFP), 2013 as may be amended from time to time. The ICASA Terrestrial Broadcasting Frequency Plan is an allotment plan that provides for two (2) multiplexes for each of the nine provinces;"

Comment..... It looks as if the DAB+ option on 214-230 MHz is much more likely. Other countries are using it and that will make receivers cheaper.

If South Africa went down the road of DRM+ on 54-68 MHz then it's likely that radios would be more expensive. It would also close off the possibility of a small allocation for radio amateurs at 60 MHz.

Something to be watched but unlikely.

Links...
1) PDF https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/41928_gon995.pdf

DMR registrations in Ireland at the end of Sept 2018

The number of EI stations registering for Digital Mobile Radio numbers continues to grow with an average of 12 per quarter so far in 2018. The chart below shows that 136 DMR numbers had been allocated as of the end of September 2018.

Out of those 136 numbers, 5 were clubs and 12 EI calls had two numbers so the total number is something like 119 individuals.

Looking at the island of Ireland overall, it is perhaps a little suprising to see how many DMR numbers are allocated in Northern Ireland by comparison.

The 410 from Northern Ireland can be broken down as follows...
GI* = 138
MI* = 213
2I* = 59

Buried in those figures are full, novice and foundation licences. Some may have two numbers and some may have upgraded from a foundation to a novice call in the last three years. If we use the EI numbers as a guide then that 410 in the north could actually mean something like 350 individuals.

That gives a ball park figure of about 470 individuals with DMR numbers on the island of Ireland.

The big difference in numbers between Northern Ireland the the Republic may possibly be accounted for by the following reasons...

1) One year ahead... Digital Radio and DMR started in Northern Ireland about a year ahead of the rest of the island. The big surge in numbers in EI in the first two months of 2017 mirror a similar surge in GI a year earlier.

2) Licence for beginners... It's a lot easier to get a licence in the north of Ireland with the option of a foundation and novice licence. In the Republic, the only option is to sit a test and get the full licence.

Links...
1) http://ham-digital.org/dmr-userreg.php

Comreg: Proposed Strategy for Managing the Radio Spectrum - 2019 to 2021

The following item was in the IRTS radio news recently (9th Sept 2018)...

Spectrum Strategy 2019-2021
IRTS responded to ComReg's draft Radio Spectrum Management Strategy 2019 to 2021 contained in document ComReg 18/74, which was published on 3 August 2018. The response deadline was rather short, 31 August which unfortunately made it impracticable to seek members' comments. Members will recall that it was the last spectrum strategy which provided the Irish amateur service with new opportunities in the range 30 - 70.5 MHz. The IRTS response for 2019 to 2021 includes a request for access to sub 8.3 kHz spectrum as well as spectrum above 50 GHz. Additionally some 5 MHz issues are addressed.

Concerning ITU WRC-19, IRTS has reflected the IARU position on various agenda items of interest to the amateur service (including 50-54 MHz) and has asked to be involved in national preparations for this major ITU event. Lastly IRTS requested clarification on text relating to radio astronomy experiments at the LOFAR site at Birr Castle. The full text of the IRTS submission to ComReg can be downloaded from the IRTS section of the downloads page on the Society's website. The URL is www.irts.ie/downloads

There is a fair bit in it so I had a closer look at the Comreg document and the IRTS response. I noted the following items...

One week of WSPR signals on 40 metres

For the last week, I have monitored the WSPR frequency on 7 MHz and I heard the following...

The antenna was an 80m doublet (full size dipole on 40m) only 4-7m above ground level. Plenty of wire but nothing special.

The Solar Flux has been in the high 60's which is pretty close to rock bottom.

The map shows plenty of signals from Europe and the Eastern half of the USA which is to be expected.  431 stations in total were heard in one week.

The key points for me were...

1) Hardly any signals from the Western USA and none from Japan. The more northerly path to these areas seemed closed.

2) Just one from South America. Would have expected more. Null in the antenna???

3) Signals from Australia and New Zealand are always interesting.

2018-09-27 07:36 ZL4JW RE44iw EI7GL IO51tu 7.040111 50 -24 
2018-09-22 06:58 VK7DIK QE38cu EI7GL IO51tu 7.04014 5 -20 
2018-09-28 07:36 VK3MI QF22ne EI7GL IO51tu 7.040146 5 -10

The ZL station was running 50w while the VK stations were running 5 watts. They were all heard near my sunrise which leads me to believe that they may have actually been long path?

4) These were the stations that were using less than 100 milliwatts with DL3MXG and DL2ODY on 1 mW!

2018-09-26 11:20 DL3MXG NO51 EI7GL IO51tu 7.040049 0.001 -27 
2018-09-25 05:48 DL2ODY JO71 EI7GL IO51tu 7.040093 0.001 -18 
2018-09-21 18:24 F5WK JN18hp EI7GL IO51tu 7.04017 0.005 -23 
2018-09-21 21:22 KD2NFC FN20 EI7GL IO51tu 7.040057 0.01 -12 
2018-09-24 10:32 G0MKB IO83rl EI7GL IO51tu 7.039992 0.01 -18 
2018-09-21 18:24 DL5SFB JN48om EI7GL IO51tu 7.040048 0.01 -25 
2018-09-22 11:42 F1EYG JN18ar EI7GL IO51tu 7.040082 0.01 -27 
2018-09-25 07:22 DJ7PRM JO30ns EI7GL IO51tu 7.040065 0.01 -28 
2018-09-26 13:28 M0KTM IO91 EI7GL IO51tu 7.040153 0.02 -26 
2018-09-22 14:48 ON7EN JO21ba EI7GL IO51tu 7.040035 0.05 -23 
2018-09-26 11:52 G8WVW IO81vu EI7GL IO51tu 7.040134 0.05 -23

I think I'll spend a week now listening on 40m FT8 and see how it compares.

G3SMT works Cape Verde Islands to set new 144 MHz Tropo record

Back on the 5th of August 2018, Mark Turner EI3KD worked D4Z in the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa to set a new IARU Region 1 tropo record on 144 MHz. Now less than two months later, that record has been broken again.

On Tuesday the 25th of September 2018, the marine duct from the Cape Verde Islands expended as far north as the British and Irish Isles again.

At 21:10, EI3KD managed to repeat his record distance by working D4Z on cw for a second time, a distance of 4163 kms.

At approx 21:46, GW0KZG in IO71LW in the west of Wales worked D4Z to extend the record to approx 4270 kms. It turned out to be one of the shortest held records however,

At approx 21:47, Peter Torrry G3SMT worked D4Z (HK76MU) to set a new IARU 144 MHz Region 1 record of 4431 kms. Peter's locator square is IO82KV.

DX-Cluster spots - 25th Sept 2018...
GW0KZG 144300.0 D4Z 22:12 25 Sep IO71LW HK76MU still 519 cal Cape Verde
G3SMT 144300.0 D4Z 21:46 25 Sep IO82KV HK76MU Cape Verde
GW0KZG 144300.0 D4Z 21:45 25 Sep IO71LW HK76MU 539 tks QSO Cape Verde
G7RAU 144300.0 D4Z 21:42 25 Sep IN79JX HK76MU 599+ cq, gl Cape Verde
G7RAU 144300.0 D4Z 21:18 25 Sep IN79JX HK76MU 559! wow! Cape Verde
EI3KD 144300.0 D4Z 21:11 25 Sep IO51VW HK76MU tnx! 589 cq Cape Verde

D41CV was also worked on FT8...
M0BUL-@ 144174.0 D41CV 22:28 25 Sep tnx Cape Verde
GW0KZG 144174.0 D41CV 22:27 25 Sep IO71LWHK76TC H-10,/-04 Tn Cape Verde
EI3KD 144174.0 D41CV 22:22 25 Sep IO51VW HK76MU oops call :) Cape Verde
G7RAU 144174.0 D41CV 22:19 25 Sep IN79JX HK76MU +03 FT8 GL! Cape Verde

This is the tropo prediction map for the path at the time...

Source : F5LEN

It's probably likely that the record will be extended again at some stage in the future with perhaps a contact to Northern Ireland or Scotland.

Just to illustrate just how far the G3SMT - D44Z contact was, this is the equivalent distance across the Atlantic from the south-west coast of Ireland.

Links...
1) F5LEN Tropo prediction map
2) ON4KST Chat
3) Post on D4C website

Results of the Irish DMR activity net... Mon 24th Sept 2018

The Irish DMR activity net kicked off on Talk Group 2722 on Monday the 24th of Sept 2018 with 18 callsigns active. After the roll call for the 32 Irish counties, there was a brief QSO between various parties on the net.

It should be interesting to see who is actually using this new digital mode in Ireland as the weeks go by and where exactly the pockets of activity are.

The map above shows the activity levels from the 24th and the list of calls as compiled by Steve, EI5DD can be seen below....

Results of the IRTS Autumn 2m & 70cms Counties Contest

The Irish Radio Transmitters Society 2m & 70cms Counties Contest was held on the 9th of September 2018 and the results show that there was a reasonable amount of activity. While it was pretty quiet down here in Cork on the south coast, it seems to have been busier further up the country.

On 2 metres (144-145 MHz), there were 25 contest logs submitted which showed 455 QSOs from 26 counties. The missing counties were Cavan, Donegal, Fermanagh, Leitrim and Monaghan. In 2017, there were 18 contest logs submitted from 26 counties.

For the 70 cms contest (432-434 MHz), 19 contest logs were submitted which showed 107 contacts from 19 counties. This was the first year of an Autumn 70cms leg so there are no results from 2017. The missing counties on 70 cms were Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Clare, Donegal, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Laois, Leitrim, Monaghan, Tyrone and Westmeath.

The full results from both contests can be found at www.irts.ie/results

DMR net planned for Monday evenings in Ireland

In an effort to promote activity on digital radio in Ireland and to gauge the level of interest, a new weekly net is starting on Talk Group 2722 on Monday the 24th of Sept 2018.

Extract from the IRTS news...
DMR Net Monday, 24th of September : Steve, EI5DD is planning to hold a National DMR net on Monday the 24th of September at 8:30 pm sharp on the Ireland Calling Channel TG 2722. The purpose of this initiative is to determine how many operators are now active on air and to evaluate the approximate numbers for each county including those in Northern Ireland. Each county will be called in alphabetical order. To keep the activity swift and snappy, please give Callsign, Name, County, and conclude with No Traffic.

The Call-in should only take 15 minutes maximum and there will be plenty of time to hold a free for all QSO at the end of the call ins. If sufficient interest is shown, we may hold this net on a weekly basis.

Update : This ended after 3 weeks.

Irish results from the 2018 IOTA Contest

From the IRTS News...
IOTA Contest Results : Provisional results for the 2018 RSGB IOTA Contest have been announced. There were 2,200 entries for this contest, which took place at the end of July. East Cork Amateur Radio Group was the highest scoring station, with more than 3,700 QSOs. 23 EI and GI stations submitted logs, and their results can be seen at www.irts.ie/results which also includes a link to the complete results for all stations.

Non-DXpedition, High Power
1 EI7M EU115 Ireland 3,757 543 15,681,840

Single-Operator
Non-DXpedition, CW, Assisted, 12-hours, High Power
1 EI5KF EU115 Ireland 1,100 123 884,985

Results of the HF SSB Field Day... Sept 2018

From the IRTS News....
Contest Results : Results of SSB Field Day, which took place over the weekend of 1st and 2nd September 2018, have been published. 5 EI stations submitted logs. Band conditions were well down on previous years, with no propagation on the higher bands, so most activity was on 40 metres and 80 metres. The Contest Results page www.irts.ie/results has the details.

Award Call Sign / Name Valid

QSOs QSO Points Multipliers Total

Open Section

EI1E/P, Avondhu Radio Club 667 2,259 76 171,684

EI7T/P, Tipperary Amateur Radio Group 393 1,414 62 87,668

Restricted Section / 6 hours

EI3Z/P, Shannon Basin Radio Club 116 397 35 13,895

EI7GY/P, Joe Ryan 93 357 26 9,282

EI3CTB/P, Justin Behan 12 46 4 184

Sign of the times as US radio retailer closes...

There was a news item recently about how a store named Radio City which sells radio equipment was closing due to the owners retiring. Apparently, there is no-one interested in taking it over as a going concern.

This news item with quote appeared in the local media about it...

"Like many technologies from an earlier era, ham radio is largely made up of older men trying to come up with ways to make it appealing to a younger demographic that isn’t that interested."

https://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2018/09/as-ham-radio-fades-last-mn-store-closes/

IARU Monitoring System issues August 2018 Newsletter

The August 2018 Newsletter of the IARU Monitoring System for Region 1 has just been released and it again shows the various intrusions into the radio amateur bands.

The newsletter reports that long-time broadcasters from the Horn of Africa have now moved from the 40-metre band although there are signs of increased military traffic on 7 and 14 MHz from Russia and China.

The contributor for the IRTS is Michael EI3GYB and he reports many instances of fishermen heard on the 80-metre amateur band.

The full newsletter can be seen here... http://www.iarums-r1.org/iarums/news2018/news1808.pdf

Russia proposes to use DRM on 65.9-74.0 MHz

On the 11th of September 2018, it was reported that the Russian Federation proposes to use the digital DRM+ standard for broadcasting on the  the radio frequency bands 65.9-74 MHz and 87.5-108 MHz.

While this move may not have much of an issue here in Ireland, it has the potential of being a major source of interference to radio amateurs using the 4 metre band (70 MHz) in central and eastern Europe. As 'Secondary Users' of this part of the spectrum, radio amateurs have no choice but to live with any interference, especially during the Summer Sporadic-E season.

The 65.9 MHz to 74 MHz spectrum has been used up to now for analogue FM transmissions in Russia and some adjacent countries. Over the last 20 years, the general trend has been to close these low band VHF transmitters and move them instead to the usual 88 to 108 MHz band. It seemed as if the 65.9 to 74 MHz band might eventually close but this new digital DRM allocation will see it being put to a new use.

This highlights the fact that while extensive parts of the low band VHF spectrum were allocated to the Amateur Radio Service in Ireland, that is very unlikely to happen elsewhere in Europe.

From Google Translate...

EI8JK works Japan on 70cms Moonbounce for an EI first

Working Japan on any band from Ireland is pretty good but what about doing it on 432 MHz? That's exactly what Tony EI8JK did on Monday the 10th of September 2018 when he worked Toshia JA6AHB by bouncing 70 cms signals off the moon!

The pair have been trying to make the contact for several weeks with Tony making small incremental improvements to his system to squeeze out every fraction of a dB. In the end, they managed to complete the contact using the JT65 mode on Monday morning during a 2-hour window to make it an EI-JA first on the UHF band.

In terms of equipment, JA6AHB was using 500 watts into a 7 metre dish while Tony was using 4 x 21 element yagis with a medium powered amplifier. His antenna system is shown below.

Tony lives on the scenic Sheeps Head peninsula in West Cork and no doubt the remote location with low noise background really helps on the VHF and UHF bands. With his current set-up and more improvements on the way, he hopes to work many more stations off the moon on 432 MHz.

48 hours on 14 MHz WSPR...

I tried out WSPR on 14 MHz last Saturday in an effort to hear a high altitude balloon in Argentina which was supposed to use it during a flight. I had no luck hearing the beacon but I left the radio on for 48 hours anyway to see what could be heard.

As can be seen, lots of signals were heard although if I have to be honest, I didn't find it that interesting. It's really no big deal to get worldwide signals on 20m.

What I did find interesting though was those stations using really low power, especially SM0FXK with 1 milliwatt!

These are the stations using 100mW or less.

FT8 tests on 144 MHz with limited success

After reading a post on the blog of Roger G3XBM about the possibilities of FT8 on 144 MHz, I tried it out for myself. The results for me on receive on a flat band however were mediocre at best...

Like any experiment, you always learn something even if the results are poor.

The key points for me are...

1) Poor antenna..... Using an indoor Slim-Jim half wave vertical antenna in the attic doesn't cut it for weak signals on 144 MHz. It might be fine in the SE of the UK, the low countries or Germany but not here in Ireland.

2) Too far west..... I estimate the bulk of the FT8 stations on 144 MHz are at least 400 kms to the east of me. Roger had a lot more stations closer to him even from the continent.

3) Fewer planes..... With a 15 second transmission time, aircraft scatter probably plays a big part on the number of FT8 signals heard on 144 MHz. Here on the south coast of Ireland, most of the aircraft traffic is Trans-Atlantic going east-west. There would be a much higher number of planes criss-crossing over the south east of the UK with many at lower altitudes.

The results confirm what I would have kind of guessed anyway. FT8 is good but it's not that good. To operate 2m FT8 from here, I would need an external horizontal Yagi.

Article on Finbarr EI0CF operating on 501 KHz

Nice article by VE7SL on the 630m adventures of Finbarr EI0CF in Donegal on 501 KHz.

Link here... http://ve7sl.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-630m-portable-adventures-of-ei.html

Frequency for new Irish beacon on 40 MHz announced...

In the September 2018 issue of Echo Ireland which is sent out to members of the IRTS, it was announced that the proposed frequency for the new Irish beacon on the 8 metre band will be 40.013 MHz.

The only amateur beacon currently on the band is OZ7IGY from Denmark on 40.071 MHz. The one on 40.050 MHz from central England seems to be off the air and was last spotted several years back.

The proposed frequency for the Irish beacon on 60 MHz will be 60.013 MHz.