Sunspots and 10m propagation - Tuesday April 7th 2015

Sunspot number has risen to 73 but 10m propagation is expected to be "poor". So far, it is quiet on 10m with just a spot from 4X4TAU (3464km) at 0700z. Otherwise nothing.

6m - quite a good start

Although I spotted, and was spotted, by no European or greater distance DX, I exchanged WSPR spots on 6m with quite a number of G stations. In all, quite a good start back on the 6m band. I am looking forward to the Es season, but happy with the results today. I am using an FT817 on 2.5W setting into a lossy (RG58) feeder to a V2000 vertical. ERP is about 1W.  I really should replace the feeder with lower loss cable.

I am still unsure about Doppler on 6m. Most stations seem to have more drift than I would expect. This could be (a) the other station settling, (b) my station settling, although I've been on all day, and (c) Doppler as a result of reflection from planes. I suspect all 3 are playing a part.

6m WSPR today - 1W ERP, V2000 vertical antenna

40MHz (8m band) allocation?

A few days ago I mentioned that South Africa has allocated a small amateur allocation for propagation studies around 40MHz. Their band is only 10kHz wide.

When I raised this on the RSGB's Yahoo technical group I was (politely) told to go elsewhere as it was "not technical". 

Although I begged to disagree, OK. Discussion closed.

10m USA spots

As of yet, not a single USA spot of my 10m 500mW WSPR beacon. The time is currently 1628z. It is still possible USA spots will occur later, but so far just EA8BVP (2986km) spotting me multiple times on 10m WSPR.  I was expecting to be spotted in the USA on 10m before now.

UPDATE 1840z:  Still no 10m USA spots today. Is that it?

UPDATE 1950z:   No sign of any stations in the USA spotting me. I think this will be another "no show" day. EA8BVP (2986km) has again been spotting me most of the day as well as a few G stations.

UPDATE 2010z:  Will be going QRT on 10m quite soon now, but will stay on 6m overnight.

UPDATE 2100z:   Now QRT on 10m WSPR.

6m luck?

Since my spot of G8XWR (150km) on 6m early this morning I have spotted absolutely nothing and no-one has spotted my 1W ERP from my V2000 vertical.  I suspect this will be typical of 6m in the months ahead? I think VK3OER's super-DX spots on 6m may have been errors: I think he was reporting the wrong band? Certainly I have seen no evidence of real DX on the band today. I think there genuinely was some TEP between JA and VK earlier.   I shall stick with 6m though as this band often brings real surprises. That is why they call 6m "the magic band".

Last Es season my results on 6m WSPR were disappointing, but I am hopeful a few more users will try WSPR.  CN8 (Morocco) was regular, but I got no super-DX spots and did not spot any super-DX myself. I know there were some days when European JT65 users were working some real DX on 6m well outside of Europe by multi-hop Es. I know of one W who spotted CN8 on 6m WSPR.

We need lots of 6m WSPR from far flung corners this coming Es season! We also need far more W's and VE's to catch those transatlantic openings on 6m.

UPDATE 1325z:  G8XWR (150km) spotted me at a decent -17dB S/N at 1234z. Otherwise nothing.

UPDATE 1636z:  No further 6m spots given or received.

Sunspots and 10m - April 6th 2015

Sunspot number is much the same as yesterday at 66. K index is 3. 10m propagation is forecast to be "fair". Conditions on 10m should be similar to yesterday, but this is 10m!

Already I have had a couple of spost of my 500mW 10m WSPR beacon from Israel, which is promising.

UPDATE 1158z:  10m spots of my 500mW WSPR beacon from Israel and Canary Islands this morning. Average conditions.

QSYed from 630m to 6m WSPR

This morning I decided to move to 6m from MF and was very pleased to spot G3XWR (150km) at 0830z. Measured drift was -3Hz which could be me. He was on the screen about 10 minutes earlier but the drift was too extreme to permit a decode. On his signal that did decode there was some evidence of aircraft Doppler too. I think the decode was tropo but there were aircraft too on the path.

We are approaching the Es season. There is also some TEP between VK and JA on 6m.

EA8BVP on 10m

EA8BVP has spotted my 10m 500mW WSPR beacon 114 times in the last 12 hours.  I think he has either now gone QRT or the path has closed.  Excellent all day long.  I assume this is single hop F2.

More news on South African 8m band (40MHz)

Read it first hand in: www.icasa.org.za/Portals/0/Regulations/Working%20Docmuents/Radio%20Frequency%20Spectrum%20Regulations/RFSR2015.pdf

In South Africa the latest radio regulations permit the use by radio amateurs of 26dBW (400W) on a 10kHz wide band 40.675 - 40.685MHz "for propagation studies only".    Now this is exactly what OFCOM should have done in the interest of real radio-science research.  Personally I think a wider band would be better, but how far sighted to allocate this at all.  Well done S.Africa.

OK, I  could pay £50 for a special research permit, but this is exactly what radio amateurs need for real self training and radio-science research.  The take-up might be small, but real research would take place.

OFCOM/RSGB - how about it please? You have just allocated 2MHz (2 chunks of 1MHz) of spectrum that will be used by just a handful mainly for DTV tests.  How about a much smaller slice somewhere really useful in the radio spectrum? 40MHz is mid-way between 10m and 6m, so ideal for Es tests and TEP tests over the equator.

10m USA WSPR spots

On 10m, WD4ELG (6287km) was the first USA station to spot me today, at 1646z.  It feels like there will be others, but conditions don't seem as good as yesterday.

UPDATE 1615z:  Only a couple of spots by WD4ELG so far.  At the moment the USA opening is marginal with weakish reports (-26dB S/N).

UPDATE 1812z:  KT5W (6314km) also spotting my 10m 500mW WSPR beacon strongly at -12dB S/N.   The USA opening is getting better!

UPDATE 2012z:  No USA stations spotting my 10m WSPR now for over 2 hours.  I think this marginal opening is over. Time to go QRT on 10m?

UPDATE 2155z:  Guess who was SO wrong again? K9AN (6505km) was still spotting me pretty well at 2126z. The opening may now be over but I shall remain on 10m just in case. 10m is a very odd band and filled with surprises!