2m UKAC this evening

Unfortunately I was unable to rotate my small (hand rotated) 2m beam this evening. I think one of the fixings has worked loose and it was dark so I did not fancy fixing it in the dark. I was active for around 70 minutes but only raised locals and then gave in to my poor voice and went QRT.  Working SSB VHF contests really does strain my voice. Usually I have had enough after an hour.

Next Tuesday is the first 70cm UKAC. I'll have a go in that, after fixing the beam supports!

6m - a dead loss today (again)

I spent most of the day on 6m WSPR (1W ERP vertical) 20% TX and 80% RX.  I was also on 10m WSPR (500mW) 100% TX.

Although 10m opened to the USA, 6m was a dead loss with no spots given or received all day long. 472kHz is much more productive even though my ERP on 472kHz is far lower than my ERP on 6m.

10m WSPR - USA spots today

My 500mW 10m WSPR-AXE-CW beacon was again being copied in the USA today by several stations. I think something odd was happening yesterday. K9AN (6505km) copied me first at 1406 and he was again the last to copy me at 1600z. The USA opening here was less than 2 hours.

UPDATE 1805z:  I spoke too soon!  At 1756z I was being copied by K4COD (6826km). The 10m band is still open to the USA.

UPDATE 1840z:  No further spots since 1756z. Often the longest distances occur just before the band closes.  K4COD gave me a report of -11dB S/N, which was very strong for 500mW.

DXCC chasing

I have never really been a DXCC chaser, or a serious contester, although I usually enter the low power section of the UKAC VHF/UHF contests on Tuesday evenings. I think this evening it is a 2m event starting at 2000z. I'll see if my voice lasts an hour! The UKAC events are 2.5 hours long but up to an hour is enough for my poor voice right now.

When I did a rough count of 10m QRP SSB DXCC countries worked over the years it was way over 100. I have worked around 50 DXCC on 6m all QRP SSB and CW.  I have never claimed any awards, but it was interesting to see just how many countries I had worked on 10m QRP SSB. Other HF bands, apart from 10m don't interest me as much.

Sunspots and 10m - Jan 6th 2015

Sunspot number has dropped back again, standing at 89. Overall, we are now on the downward slope although there will still be good days.

10m propagation is forecast to be "fair" today. Yesterday was diabolical here with no USA stations spotting my 500mW WSPR for the first time in months. Today has to be better surely?

UPDATE 1108z:  So far just Europeans spotting me on 10m WSPR.  Still, more stations than all of yesterday.

Jack Jones - the answer is NO!!!!

"Jack Jones" - pirate, please get the message: every comment you add to my blog will be deleted. I do NOT support pirate stations.

Please get a legal licence and join our great community instead.

No USA today on 10m?

For the first time in months, not a single USA station has spotted my 500mW WSPR beacon on 10m. It is now 1610z so time is running out fast!   Others may have been more successful, but it tells me conditions are changing for the worst on 10m.

UPDATE  1630z:   Still just spots earlier from LZ1OI (2153km) and not a single spot from the USA of my 10m 500mW WSPR beacon.

UPDATE 1735z:  Still no other spots than those earlier by LZ1OI. This looks like the first day since the summer not to have been spotted in the USA.

UPDATE 1755z:  Bas, from The Netherlands, wonders if 10m conditions were poor because of a recent aurora (see his comment below). If he is right conditions might get better over the coming days.

West coast Canada to New Zealand on 6m

I heard recently of a 6m 2-way CW QSO between New Zealand (ZL3RC) and a station in Western Canada (VE7DAY). This was probably a combination of Es and transequatorial propagation. At over 12000km it is some QSO. For those prepared to invest in big antennas and high power and lots of patience, this magic band does produce some very long distance contacts, even when there is a lack of F2 propagation. My own more modest attempts on 6m WSPR have been almost a total failure but I was just using a V2000 vertical and 1W ERP. I wonder if I would have had a lot more success with 10W and a beam?

See www.amateurradio.com  .

Sunspots and declining 10m conditions

Sunspot number today is 124 (respectable) but 10m conditions are expected to be just "fair" again. I have had my 10m 500mW WSPR beacon on for about 30 minutes but so far no sign of any USA spots.  Just a few weeks ago I could just about guarantee a USA opening on 10m by now. No doubt 10m will open to the USA, but a little later and close a little earlier. Hopefully conditions will improve as the days lengthen again.

Digital systems and amateur radio?

At the moment there seem to be several competing digital modulation schemes First there was ICOM's D-star system, then C4FM from Yaesu, and of course DMR, which is gaining ground in the commercial PMR world.  There are even a few experimenting with TETRA, as used by the public services. Like Betamax and VHS, the best system may not win in the end.

At the moment, I am just not interested. I'll wait to see who wins in the end. My bet is DMR will win in the end as there will be a plentiful second hand market from PMR. This will never be so with any proprietary system. DMR is an open standard, so there will be plentiful radios around and at decent prices before too long.