500kHz WSPR - fewer stations around now

500kHz WSPR has gone rather quiet of late with fewer stations on most evenings. So far only M0BMU has reported me tonight, despite my report being pretty strong. A new 500kHz WSPR receiving station this evening is OY6FRA and it would be great if he could hear me 1164kms to the north. This would not be a new DX record but it would be another new country. The OY6FRA club station's antennas are shown on the left.

Sunspots on track

Latest graphs (March 2 2010) from the NOAA space weather site suggest that the smoothed sunspot number predictions are on track with a maximum of 90 forecast to occur in May 2013. This is not a high number but would still suggest excellent conditions on 15,12 and 10m from later this year until 2015. If you have not experienced 10m when wide, wide open then you are in for a nice surprise: dust off your QRP rig, put up a 16 foot long dipole and work the entire world!  Better HF conditions are already here and they will only get better still as the year progresses.

10m is calling me

As I sat winding my ATU for 500kHz this evening my thoughts were again turning to 28MHz. Although I've plenty of ways of getting on the 10m band already, I've always fancied a simple homebrew rig either for CW or sideband.  One idea is to make a QRPp WSPR beacon that I could leave running almost continuously. I've a 14.060kHz crystal that might just make it to 28.124600 when doubled in the right circuit. Into a simple phasing SSB circuit and I could have a few milliwatts of 10m WSPR.

Change to 500kHz ATU

This evening, as an experiment, I rewound the tapped coil on on ferrite rod based table-top ATU for 500kHz using 0.56mm enamelled wire rather than 0.2mm. The antenna current was up by (at most) 20%,  but on-air it made no difference with reports on 500kHz from M0BMU being the same as before. Before I put away my 500kHz kit for the summer I may try an L vertical with a 15m long horizontal top as I have access to a nice tree in my neighbour's garden which would provide a convenient support for the far end.

A new personal WSPR DX record

This evening I put the WSPR beacon first on 20m and then 30m running 1W into the 5m long vertical matched with the Elecraft T1 auto-ATU. First came a report from a VE6 in Alberta on 20m then a new DX record on 30m with a report from VK2/VK6DI at 16969kms. Not bad going for 1W to an indifferent antenna. Some of the European reports suggest that I'd still have been heard in Europe with just 5mW. VK6DI is a QRSS and weak signal mode enthusiast: see his site at http://www.users.on.net/~davroz/vk6di/

Receiver for 8.97kHz DX experiments

Jim M0BMU successfully copied signals from DK7FC on 8.97kHz VLF last weekend using a small loop antenna and preamp feeding into a Spectrum Lab soundcard VLF receiver. I've put a copy of Jim's latest preamp on my 9kHz page on my website. Others have tried voltage probe antennas.

Talk Invites

Sharing the real fun of ham radio is important to me and so I enjoy giving the occasional talk to clubs on subjects such as QRP, simple radio fun, WSPR and the like. The Chelmsford ARS has asked me to do one on 500kHz and WSPR in November. Not liking night driving, I'm hoping someone there will offer me a bed for the night.

Litter in the UK

Some parts of the UK appear to have a problem with litter on the roadside verges. In our area this is only collected once every 6 months, so bad areas can look awful after a few months. There are several initiatives to help co-ordinate local "self-help" groups where volunteers go out in groups to tidy up particularly bad patches. See http://www.thebigtidyup.org/default.aspx . I'm hoping to get involved in East Cambridgeshire where I'm sure a few of us can make a difference.

More amateur VLF DX on 8.97kHz

Since I was last at home there have been further tests from DK7FC on 8.97kHz. His signal has been received in Germany, Netherlands, Italy and the UK at better strengths than a week earlier as he managed to get the ERP up a bit more. These experiments are truly ground breaking with amateur signals being successfully received by ionospheric propagation on VLF. See http://abelian.org/vlf/9k/ for some reports from the UK station who received these signals. Jim Moritz M0BMU also received the signals last weekend using a small loop antenna at a portable location near Tring.

Back from (rainy) Devon

Got back from our week in Devon today. Although I packed my VX2 dual band mini portable it only got used to listen to BBC Radio 4 I'm afraid. All week, apart from a couple of brief breaks it rained and rained. There is an old saying, "come to sunny Devon where it rains six days out of seven". As much as I love the county where I, and my ancestors back to at least the 1400s lived, sadly the saying is true! Get good weather and there's nowhere else to beat it. Get a wet week and it's a bit bleak. This is a picture of Bolt Tail in better weather last Sunday.