Sunspots on the slide

Every day that passes I am more convinced than ever that the peak of cycle 24 has already passed and we are now on the downwards slope. If correct, this is one of the weakest cycles ever. It is still possible this is just a blip, but I think not.

Iceland

Currently on holiday in Iceland enjoying some spectacular scenery on the journey around the island by car. No radio gear - just enjoying the landscape, birds and people.

Meccano Magazine - free online archive

Today I rediscovered an old Meccano Magazine from 1942 in my drawers. Back in the 1950s the Meccano Magazine was a highlight I looked forward to receiving with news of new additions to the Hornby Dublo 00 gauge trains and new Dinky toys. Even this wartime edition has lots of interest in it. The size was obviously reduced in WW2 to conserve paper as it was considerably larger when I had in in the 1950s. The entire series of Meccano magazine is available free online. See http://meccano.magazines.free.fr/ .  Individual pages or whole magazines are available as pdfs.

Bitsbox supplier

A recent post on the GQRP Yahoo group alerted me to Bitsbox which looks to be an excellent UK supplier with decent prices and delivery charges. They stock a lot of useful parts. I have to place an order for some new parts for autumn/winter projects and intend to give them a go.

6m WSPR

For the last few weeks I've been on 6m WSPR when busy doing other things in the home. I run 5W into a V2000 vertical. Almost every evening I exchange reports with CN8LI in Morocco but there is very little WSPR activity at "interesting distances" on this band. By this I mean stations in the USA, Canada, South America and the Caribbean. The 6m Es multi-hop super DX season only lasts a few months and now is a great time and WSPR a good mode to exploit it.

BTW last night G4ENZ was getting decent reports from Morocco when using just 1mW with WSPR at over 2000km.

Incidentally checking inter-G paths on 6m is also fun using WSPR. These tropo distance spots are often accompanied by Doppler shifted multi-path interference from passing aircraft. It is even worse on 4m and 2m I suspect.

VLF tests last weekend

Last weekend saw both DK7FC and DF6NM transmitting with <100mW ERP on VLF. Their signals were successfully received by many stations across Europe with best DX for DK7FC/P being 2404km to Iceland. G3ZJO successfully received a DFCW60 message from DK7FC/P.

Both stations described their activity and results in brief reports which you can find via links at https://sites.google.com/site/sub9khz/news .

VLF test Saturday June 18th (DK7FC/P)

Tomorrow morning Stefan DK7FC/P will be testing for the first time in many months using his kite supported VLF antenna. He will be transmitting from mid Germany on 8.9700000kHz (precisely GPS locked) from around 0600z Saturday. His ERP will be in the 50-250mW region.

If you have Spectrum Laboratory (free software) and a suitable E-field probe or loop antenna then this is a great chance to see if you can detect his signals. The last time he tested he was quite a good signal in the UK and was received by several suitably equipped stations.

It is unlikely his signal will be audible, but he should be a clear trace on the SL screen with a suitably narrow bandwidth setting (4.52mHz or less). Frequency accuracy is paramount and you will need a Spectum Lab config file that "locks" onto GBZ or similar to ensure you know precisely where to look. Initial tests will be with a long carrier followed by characters in very slow DFCW or QRSS.

You do NOT need a VLF communications receiver: just a loop or E-field probe and a small audio preamp feeding the sound card of a PC. This is amateur radio "at the edge" in the same way that optical comms is .....but at the other end of the spectrum. Great fun and a nice challenge.

I shall be looking and streaming the received signals to my VLF grabber visible at https://sites.google.com/site/sub9khz/vlf-grabbers/xbm-grabber . It is also possible that G3ZJO will have his (better) VLF grabber on too at http://g3zjo.bplaced.net/ . The RSGB LF-reflector will carry updates in the event of the kite blowing away, going QRT for storms etc..

Scientists predict rare 'hibernation' of sunspots

For years, scientists have been predicting the Sun would by around 2012 move into solar maximum, a period of intense flares and sunspot activity, but lately a curious calm has suggested quite the opposite.

See http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110614/ts_afp/usspacesun

23cm activity contest next Tuesday

Having had some fun in both the 2m and 70cm cumulative contests today and last Tuesday my thoughts are now turning to the next contest which is on 23cm next Tuesday evening. As I don't have any transmit or antennas on that band I shall just listen. Once again I shall have to make a suitable antenna and the most likely will be either a small 4 el beam made from thick wire or a 23cm Moxon 2 element beam which would be about the size of my hand. My 23cm converter has not been used for well over 15 years so that will need to be checked carefully and the LO crystal re-netted.

70cm activity contest - a brilliant /P evening

Stations worked 70cms UKAC 14/6/11

My tiny 4el 70cm yagi made from wood and a couple of coat hangers worked very well this evening netting me 17 QSOs in just over 1 hour of operating with 5W RF from the FT817. Best DX worked was 191km although I heard both GD8EXI and GI6ATZ at much greater distances.