8m disappointment

This Es season, I was hoping we would see several new countries appearing on 8m. It would have been good if a few stations had been able to get even temporary access to the band around the solar maximum. 

Also, several countries could legally transmit beacons in the ISM band 40.66-40.70 MHz without a licence. We know from Australia that 5mW of 8m WSPR can go 5000km and many times on 10m just microwatts can cross Europe almost daily. If there were lots of QRRP WSPR beacons on 8m just imagine how useful this could be.  Apart from Greece, with ISM rules, I have yet to see any further activity from new countries.

I am quite surprised and saddened. These next few years could be really interesting on 8m.

23cm beacon hunting

Last night I went beacon hunting on 23cm with my tiny indoor 2 element beam. I monitored GB3DUN on Dunstable Downs for several minutes. This is probably my best chance of copying a 23cm beacon.

Just occasionally there was a very brief signal that may have been this beacon. It was there for (at most) a second, then was gone. The direct path is very obstructed and my only real hope is by aircraft scatter. The impression I got was this was not aircraft. I have no idea if you get MS on 23cm.

Other beacons I also looked out for on my waterfall, but nothing was seen.

10m beacon list

These days, I prefer to look at FT8 and WSPR activity, but some still prefer to monitor beacons. 

This link was on John EI7GL's blog. It shows 10m beacons as well as other HF and MF beacons.

See http://dl8wx.de/BAKE_KW.HTM

70cm UK beacons

At the moment, I am not sure which 70cm UK beacons are operational. 

Last night GB3LEU at Leicester (432.490MHz) popped up with the indoor 4 el yagi, pointing out the window. Most of the time it is below the noise floor. 

Every time some tree surgeons were working about 50m away, I could hear a sprog on 432.432MHz!

It seems few (none?) of the UK beacons have FT8 or WSPR sequences. PI4 which several beacons use, seems to require special software. Personally, I think it would be good to have time synchronised beacons with an FT8 TX slot so there could be more monitors.

See https://www.microwavers.org/indexb.htm .

HF beacons

Thanks to the blog at EI7GL, this is a list of HF amateur beacons which is regularly updated. 

See http://dl8wx.de/BAKE_KW.HTM .

VHF/UHF beacons on FT8?

It seems to me to be a "good idea" if all beacons had an FT8 transmission slot. A single FT8 TX slot is only 15 seconds, but this would allow monitoring of beacons at great range.

For those not equipped for FT8 there could still be a CW slot. All the beacons in a region could co-exist in a few kilohertz of band which beacon hunters could monitor all the time.

WSPR is too long at 2 minute transmission cycles, but FT8 would be far better. Shorter TX slots would make monitoring by modes like aircraft and other types of scatter more probable.

On reflection, maybe all beacons including HF ones need an FT8 slot?

Beacons on FT8?

With FT8 becoming so popular, I am surprised beacons on HF and VHF don't include this weak signal mode. Perhaps some already do and I have not heard of them! If you are aware of any, please let me know.

Beacons - some useful data

You may not have seen this comment, so I have reproduced it here:

Hi Roger,

GB3VHF (2m), GB3UHF (70cm), GB3BAA (6m) & GB3SEE (10GHz) are always good signals into the SUWS WEB SDR, so you can check their on-air status anytime.

http://websdr.suws.org.uk/

Many other UK and European beacons are also audible when conditions are good.
 
Regards,

Martin - G8JNJ

SUWS is Southampton University, where I nearly did a PhD in 1971. This would have been with Dr Ryecroft in VLF space physics. Still, I did get to lunch with Josselyn Bell who first discovered pulsars. In the end I stayed in industry, but often wonder how life would have been had I done the PhD.

QRP News: Beacon Hunt

From Oleg:

Dear QRP Friends,
keep in your diaries, please. Friend of mine Igor R2AJA ask me to help
in  announce original game - Beacon Hunt. He'd like to invite as much
QRP operators as possible. Detailed rules on his blog page - http://lavrinenkov.blogspot.ru/2016/05/beacon-hunt-v.html
Wish you all the best, 72!
Oleg "Mr. 72" RV3GM / KH6OB

VHF/UHF beacons

In the next few days I must continue my search to find out which beacons will be good propagation indicators. I am surprised how well some (long way away) beacons can be copied nearly all of the time.

Access to the shack will be more limited these next few days as I have to walk through the guest bedroom to get there and we have visitors staying. I have still to hear the GB3MCB 2m beacon in Cornwall and I am wondering if it is operational? By ow I would have expected the odd MS ping, at least.

I am looking forward to a more complete 70cm beacon network again. At the moment there are very few operational 70cm beacons in the UK. GB3UHF at Fairmile in Kent should be very useful when it becomes operational as I can peak the beams using the 2m GB3VHF beacon first.

During the last solar peak I remember copying a 6m beacon in NW Canada on just a whip antenna!

Beacon hunting

Maybe tomorrow evening I need to do a good search for 70cm beacons in range under (near) flat conditions. There is a distinct lack of UK 70cm beacons, with even the very good GB3BSL beacon near Bristol now QRT. This would have been copied, I feel sure, at this QTH.  Some of the nearer European ones may be  receivable.  PI7CIS (on 70cm) is probably my best hope. I can copy the co-sited 2m beacon.

VHF beacons

With Andrew G6ALB's superb and kind help, my manually turned, Moonraker supplied, dual band 2m/70cm antenna is up and working, no thanks to the rubbish patch lead from Moonraker which had 2 dodgy crimped connectors! The N connector at the mast end has had to be replaced and at the shack end the SMA crimp is intermittent. Andrew is going to replace this with a PL259 plug shortly.

With the patch  lead working (by wiggling!) I can copy the following VHF beacons at any time: GB3VHF  Kent (144.430MHz), GB3NGI N.Ireland (144.482MHz) and PI7CIS Holland  (144.415MHz). There may be others too but I have yet to have a good look. The Cornish beacon seems too far to copy, at least so far. I have yet to check 70cm beacons. On the halo PI7CIS on VHF was just nudging the noise floor, so the 2m beam is certainly helping.

The manual antenna rotation method (out of the guest bedroom window) seems to work fine: I can reach the pole OK and can peak beacons by listening on the shack loudspeaker.

When the shack end PL259 is added, the Westflex cable should no longer be intermittent. The Moonraker crimped connectors will then have all been replaced. Says a lot for Moonraker's quality control doesn't it?  Don't think they can ever check crimped patch coaxes, which I assume they buy-in. A simple sampled ratio pull test is called for. If any fail reject the batch.

Now looking forward to Tuesday evening UKAC sessions to try the beam in contests on 2m and 70cm.

Sub-9kHz induction comms resource

John F5VLF/G3PAI has brought a very useful website about induction mode communications below 9kHz to my attention. This site is mainly about cave location and beaconing systems, but there are some neat schematics for local coverage (thousands of feet range) TX and RX circuits that would be suitable for QRSS and similar experiments in the "Dreamers Band" as some have called it. See http://radiolocation.tripod.com/

Simple beacon keyer IC: the K-ID2

Looking around for a simple beacon keyer to use with a QRSS beacon, I discovered the ICs sold for $6 (available via Paypal) from K1EL. This 8 pin IC looks ideal as it allows a variety of pre-programmed messages to be selected and sent at predetermined keying speeds.

See http://k1el.tripod.com/KID.html . At $6 each you can hardly go wrong with this. I shall be ordering a few shortly.

Listening to G3XIZ's 15mW 80m beacon

G3XIZ's beacon running 15mW on 3.555MHz to his FETer transceiver was excellent copy this morning. At peaks it was running RST569 at a distance of around 45kms.

Here is the sound clip of his signal at 10.10am today, 30 Jan 2009.

Argo plot of OK0EMW tonight on 505kHz

This is the Argo waterfall plot showing the Czech 505kHz beacon OK0EMW on QRSS3 (slow CW, 3 sec dots) coming in well tonight at 1700z. It was not audible by ear though. Note the QSB in the middle when the number 0 was being sent.

WSPR beacons on the 500kHz band

There are now some stations appearing on the 500kHz band using WSPR mode which is a clever digital beaconing system allowing reception to be monitored and mapped/listed using PC software attached to a suitable transceiver and the internet. In effect you can set a transmitter running then check for reception reports from similarly equipped stations via an internet reporting page. See http://www.physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/ for more information. K1JT designs some mighty impressive ham software! When I get a WindowsXP machine that is reliable again I will try this mode I think.