Time to bring down the VHF/UHF yagi antenna?

From the recent tests with G3KKD it looks like my 3el 2m and 5el 70cm beam (or the feeder?) is faulty. I may take it down to see what the issue is. I had plans to replace the hand-rotated beam with big-wheels which have a little gain (3dBD) and do not require turning. I noticed the VSWR was rather high the last few times the yagis were used. Last night, even with just a halo and a run of lossy feeder I did almost as well as with the beam on 2m, so a single big-wheel plus a run of low-loss feeder should see an improvement of 2-4dB over the halo, if not more.

Sunspots and 10m - Wed Aug 5th 2015

Sunspot number is 68 today. K=1.  10m conditions remain "poor". So far today, despite a hard reset and resync of the beacon to internet time, my 10m WSPR beacon has been copied by no-one.

Ian G3KKD visit

G3KKD came over this morning to collect his DATV kit and 2m portable antenna.  He stopped for a coffee and I showed him my 472kHz and 136kHz kit, my optical kit and WSPR kit. Although Ian has used WSPR, his main interest is ATV. Sadly there are few TV enthusiasts locally these days. Even the local ATV repeater is very quiet these days.

No, I do NOT grow flowers on my head! My XYL took the photo.

6m Es today (so far)

A rather disappointing start on 6m WSPR today.  Only 1 station spotted by Es DK8NE (755km) at 0944z. Apart from this station, only G0OQK (98km) copied by tropo.

2m UKAC tonight

I may try the 2m leg of the UKAC this evening using my halo fed with the non-too-brilliant feeder. This is a totally different antenna and feeder to the one which may be faulty. My voice is not good, so I probably won't stop on too long.

2m UKAC Aug 4th with 5W and a halo

UPDATE 2110z:  In the end, after about 1 hour of operating I managed 8 QSOs with the halo, UR58 (lossy feeder), and 5W from the FT817. I was quite pleased with the results considering the very poor antenna and low power.

2m digital TV

At the moment I am doing a test over a 7 mile path with G3KKD who has a 1W 2m digital TV TX.  The signal is getting across the path, but too weak to decode. We are about to try a different 2m antenna at my end. G3KKD wants to try the path to Luton (he has a friend Arthur there) but wanted to try this shorter path first. There is a core of keen DATV experimenters all trying to reach each other.  I am not sure if anyone in the UK is using the 4m NoV band for digital TV tests.

UPDATE 1652z:   Success!  Using Ian's 3el 2m antenna on his portable mast we were able to see pictures well over the 7 mile path with 1W DATV on 2m. This means my antenna or feeder are not working correctly. When I swap to a big-wheel or big-wheel stack with new feeder it may well perform better than I expect.

6m WSPR - CN8LI again

CN8LI (2113km) is coming in pretty well on 6m WSPR again. We exchanged spots just after lunch. He is still a good signal here at nearly 1400z.

Sunspots and 10m - Tues August 4th 2015

Sunspot number is 62 (K=2) and 10m propagation is expected to remain "poor".  Es may be the saving grace on both 10m and 6m. We are still very much in summertime conditions. As yet, I have seen no evidence of transatlantic openings by Es on either 10m WSPR or 6m WSPR. There may well have been openings but with few stations active (especially on 6m WSPR) these may have gone unnoticed.

SignaLink off overnight

Overnight I spotted G0OQK (98km) several times on 6m but he did not copy me. Then I realised my interface was off so it worked on RX but not TX. Now on!

ON7KB (299km) again spotted on 6m WSPR

There was Es today on 6m and what appears to be tropo in the form of a WSPR spot of ON7KB (299km) quite recently. I shall stick around on 10m and 6m WSPR overnight. I did a hard reset of the 10m beacon about an hour ago so it should be spot-on during the night. The 6m WSPR is directly linked to internet time, so should be fine.  I'll go back to 630m (472kHz) WSPR tomorrow evening, unless 6m is magic tonight and shows signs of transatlantic DX, which I somehow doubt.

UPDATE 2112z:  All quiet on 6m WSPR now.  I shall have to give random MS another go on 6m. I listened (looked) a few seasons back and was surprised what came through using one of the digital modes (forget which one though!).