ZL9 Campbell Island (near New Zealand)

There is to be a DXpedition to Campbell Island (OC-037) in November this year. See http://dx-world.net/2012/zl9hr-campbell-island-dxpedition/ .  This reminds me of the excellent conditions on 20m AM back in the 1960s when I remember hearing a station on Campbell Island working the UK with S9 signals early one morning. In those days I'm sure the prefix was ZL4 though.

Is it just me, or is it much more difficult to hear and work DX stations these days compared with back then? Some believe that the ionosphere has actually deteriorated in the last 40 odd years so that, despite rising sunspot numbers, conditions are not as good as they were years ago.

10m DX

This evening there were some interesting west African stations coming through on 10m.  6V7Z in Senegal on SSB and J52HF in Guinea Bissau on CW. I did not try to break pile-ups with my QRP and instead worked CT9/DL3KWR on QRP CW. Following this I moved down to 12m and worked N1WPU on CW also with QRP.

Noctilucent Clouds and microwave DX?

Noctilucent, very high altitude, night time visible, clouds are becoming more common and at lower latitudes. This may be a result of climate change. One phenomenon associated with these is strong microwave radar echoes, raising the possibilty of very long distance DX by reflection from these on bands like 10GHz. This is an area ripe for experimentation but I am unaware of ANY groups anywhere investigating this exciting new propagation mode.

There is a  link between noctilucent clouds and the solar cycle with NLC activity peaking just after solar minimum, possibly because low solar activity allows the upper atmosphere to cool, promoting the growth of ice crystals that make up the clouds.  See http://spaceweather.com/

Sub-9kHz Induction Field DX?

With all the discussion recently on the LF Reflector about how to radiate a signal on sub-9kHz I'm left wondrering how far, practically, one could expect to get simply with sub-9kHz electromagnetic induction using multi-turn loops at each end.

It's quite easy for anyone to generate 50-100W or so and feed this into a largish diameter multi-turn loop. Correctly aligned and with a similar loop at the far end and using decent weak signal processing just what range might be possible using modes like QRSS or WSPR? Has anyone tried this to see just what is practical, simply using induction fields?

The Cave Radio Group (CREG) may have some answers but I'm not a subscriber so can't read any of their documents.

LATER: Jim Moritz M0BMU did some sums (see my webpage on sub-9kHz radio) and reckons that about 4.4kms is the best one could do with 100W and a 10m diameter loop and purely inductive communications. More power and bigger (low loss) loops could get a bit further still.

12m across the pond

Yesterday, Feb 15th, there was transatlantic DX to be heard on the 24MHz (12m) band. It was good to hear W stations again. It is only a matter of time now before the first decent F2 openings begin again on 10m. I have the feeling this will be in the next 4 weeks and we will not have to wait until the autumn. Occasionally there are E layer openings in the summer months but it is the REAL 10m and 6m F2 openings I'm looking forward to again: when 10m properly gets back into its stride there will be strong stations all the way from 28-29.7MHz and from most of the world at the right time of day. On favourable days in the autumn there will be openings to the USA and Canada from Europe on 6m too. Probably not this year, but there will be a good chance next (2011).

Google ads quirk

Since I mentioned the Flea QRP transceiver some of my banner ads have come up advertising Flea spray! As I've mentioned them again I expect they will remain until I use some other key words in my text.

DXing - realtime maps

This is a useful resource from VHFDX.net to track openings on 10m and upwards into the VHF bands. A mapping system that plots recently reported QSOs. Thanks to G4ILO for pointing this out to me.

See http://www.vhfdx.net/spots/map.php

DX Crystal sets

Jim's Crystal Radio Page at http://www.hobbytech.com/crystalradio/crystalradio.htm has some very neat crystal set designs with high performance receivers. These units also look like works of art as they are so elegant.

There are other excellent resources at Gollum's Crystal Receiver World http://www.oldradioworld.de/gollum/ .

70cms good conditions tonight

Just worked GW0LJW in Gwent and G3VEH/M via a 70cms repeater in Somerset tonight when running 5W (actually about 1.5W into the antenna after the coax run) into the vertical colinear. Conditions are definitely up in that direction as the distance is about 250kms.

The South Hams and G5BY on 6m

A slight aside from ham radio, I just want to give a plug for the most beautiful part of England where I lived until leaving for university - the beautiful part of southernmost Devon known as the South Hams. Our family has lived here from at least 1428, the earliest date in our family history records when one of my ancestors owned one fee of land in the time of King Henry VI. You can understand why I still regard this as my spiritual home even though we enjoy living in East Anglia. We still make regular pilgrimages back to "the promised land" as my dear old dad called it. Indeed it is.

There is a new book of walks in this area called The South Hams Coast by Gerry Miles (see www.devonpaint.nl/ and also available from www.amazon.co.uk). The book is beautifully illustrated with coastal walks covering many of the high spots from where some great VHF DX has been worked. These include Bolberry Down from where G5BY worked the USA on 6m back in the 1940s when the band was briefly available. Today his QTH (see old picture) is "The Port Light Hotel" a delightful place to drink a pint or have a crab sandwich on a long sunny cliff top walk.