ISS - not

It turns out my recent message purporting to have been sent for the International Space Station (ISS) was not from there at all, but from a tent in Wales! Not quite sure why people get a kick from this? It all seems a bit silly to me. Previously this person's account was sending out dodgy links and I informed him of this.  Be warned - all may not be what it seems.

6m - CN8LI again and more local DX

The path to CN8LI (2113km) is there again today, but not as strongly as yesterday. So far a single spot in each direction mid-morning. You will recall I use 1W ERP  with a vertical V2000 antenna with about 0dBD gain on 6m. My coax is CB RG58, so quite lossy.

There is quite a bit of inter-G/GDX and aircraft scatter activity with G4FGJ (44km), G4IKZ (18km), G0OQK (98km), G4BRK (134km), G0LRD (25km), G4FFC (45km), G3WKW (134km), G8JNJ/A (184km), as well as ON0VA (280km) with the latter with 3Hz Doppler so almost certainly aircraft reflection.

6m is an interesting band!

6m - WSPR very early Es?

As early as 0402z DB0ZDF (608km at -20dB S/N) was spotting my 1W ERP 6m signal by Es today. Apart from this single report, just the usual GDX stations (out to 184km) no doubt helped by aircraft reflections. I am assuming DB0ZDF was Es; it is possible at this range it could have been tropo or aircraft reflection too.

6m overnight tonight

As 6m has been open for Es most of the day, I'll reset the clock and leave the software to run overnight and hope the WSPR program does not crash in the wee hours.

The chances of really long distance multi-hop Es must be slim, but there is an outside chance.

UPDATE 2225z:  G0OQK (98km) is still spotting me regularly by aircraft reflection or pure tropo.

6m Es this evening

IK1WVQ (1084km) has just been spotted at a strong -6dB S/N at 1710z. This is the first Es today after the many reports ed with exchang CN8LI this morning.

I wonder if there will be other Es openings this evening? IK1WVQ  was running 20W (high for WSPR) and drift (I assume Doppler?) was a massive 3Hz. Of course, it could be the TX drifting as it goes from RX to 20W.

UPDATE 1745z: CN8LI is spotting me again and IK1WVQ is now +3dB S/N, Why does he run 20W when 1-2W would be quite enough?

UPDATE 2205z: The last spot of me by CN8LI (2113km) was at 2018z with -23dB S/N, so relatively weak. This was his 18th spot of me today. Spots started at 0912z today when I switched to 6m. The path may well have been open even earlier. Propagation has been there between us most of the day - quite remarkable!

WSPR spots from CN8LI today - 1W ERP my end

WSPR non-reciprosity? More

As an experiment, I have reduced my TX so that the FT817 ALC is now barely moving. This is a bit lower than the usual setting. TX power as indicated on the FT817's meter is unchanged.

I'll monitor to see if reciprocity. is affected. I suspect not. The ALC was set at a lower setting at 1038z.

40m WSPR overnight

As you will recall, my antenna on 40m is very low and not that efficient: it is just a 10/20/40m Par end-fed with an average height above ground of 4-5m at most. Last night I was on 2W. I hate to think how low the ERP would have been on 40m!

Overnight 17 unique stations spotted me with best DX AE2EA (5654km). Even with a low and inefficient 40m antenna, WSPR still works well!

40m unique spots of my 2W WSPR last night

6m - local, GDX and Es all in one transmission

The 0912 1W ERP 6m WSPR transmission today resulted in G4IKZ (18km), G0OQK (98km) and CN8LI (2113km) spotting me all in one transmission, A very good start on 6m after QSYing up from 40m overnight where the best report was from an AE2 on the east coast USA.

So far CN8LI has been seen twice and he has seen me three times. A promising start on 6m Es today,especially as it is very early still.

Sunspot count today is "only" 75 with 20-30MHz conditions described as "normal" so a reasonable chance of F2-layer DX on 10m.

UPDATE 0958z:  G0LRD (25km) and G4FFC (45km) both spotting me too.

UPDATE 1025z: CN8LI seems to have a "pipe" to me: he is spotting me multiple times now remarkably strongly. Is this really Es?  I know Es signals can be very strong and consistent but when propagation is there it is so good. It  behaves almost more like a duct than a pure reflection.

WSPR non-reciprosity?

Sometimes my software give some stations on WSPR quite decent reports as the signal decodes well. In these situations I am surprised not to be decoded myself as, even allowing for power difference, I should still be well above -30dB S/N. The reasons could be many:

• The other station is just on TX only
• The other station has a very high noise floor
• The other station has a deaf RX.

Apart from these, I cannot think why I should not be copied.

6m GDX - there if stations are active

Today there have been a good number of G stations active on 6m WSPR allowing a really good opportunity to explore GDX paths out to 134km. It seems that if stations are active out  to close to 200km (and probably further) then even a few watts of WSPR (polarisation probably unimportant?) will be decoded at the far end of the path eventually, depending on aircraft reflections and favorable Doppler.

This probably means JT65 or JT9 ranges on 6m probably extend to around 200km at least if the stations know the most favourable alignment of aircraft. The same probably applies on 10m, 4m and 2m ,as well as 70cms and microwave bands.

What I'm not (yet) clear about is the normal tropo range without aircraft reflections. For true tropo, polarisation is more likely to be important: one does not want to throw away valuable dBs with cross-polarisation losses. I don't think this matters where signals are randomly scattered off aircraft bodies.