Although the locals are not active or they have their beams away from me, I can see clear evidence of F2 spots on 10m WSPR appearing. EA8/LA3JJ (2870km) and LZ1OI (2153km) have both spotted me lots of times today already on 10m WSPR this morning. It bodes well for the day.
UPDATE 1635z: Plenty of USA 10m WSPR spots now. This is the 4th day in a row that I've had 10m WSPR spots from the USA.
21 Oct 2015
CQWW Contest
Although I am not a great contest fan - although I do like the VHF and UHF RSGB UKAC contests on Tuesday evenings - I usually go on 10m SSB for the CQWW SSB contest. The SSB leg is this coming weekend. Last year I forgot it (doh!) and the year before I was in hospital. Although we have visitors for some of the time, I hope to be on Sunday PM and occasionally beforehand. It is a good chance to work lots of stations.
Even in quiet sunspot years CQWW usually brings out the stations. It is a good contest although I have never used much power or actually submitted a score. See you there?
Next autumn will be very interesting: sunspot numbers will have fallen but I bet CQWW will prove 10m is open despite this. Often lack of activity on 10m makes a band seem "closed". All it needs is a bit of activity to prove this. This is where 10m WSPR should prove its worth.
See http://www.cqww.com/ .
Even in quiet sunspot years CQWW usually brings out the stations. It is a good contest although I have never used much power or actually submitted a score. See you there?
Next autumn will be very interesting: sunspot numbers will have fallen but I bet CQWW will prove 10m is open despite this. Often lack of activity on 10m makes a band seem "closed". All it needs is a bit of activity to prove this. This is where 10m WSPR should prove its worth.
See http://www.cqww.com/ .
Sunspots and 10m - Wed Oct 21st 2015
Sunspot number has fallen slightly to 77 (K=3) but 10m propagation is again expected to be "fair". We have seen USA 10m spots now for several days in a row and I expect this to continue, except on very disturbed days, until the spring.
Clocks go back in the UK this weekend! Dark evenings. CQWW SSB this weekend.
Clocks go back in the UK this weekend! Dark evenings. CQWW SSB this weekend.
Back on 10m WSPR and 6m WSPR
After a temporary glitch with the PC (internet time sync failed) I am now back on both 10m and 6m WSPR. It takes about 15-20 minutes for the 10m beacon to stabilise. Anyway, back on both bands.
20 Oct 2015
QRT on all bands
A few minutes ago I turned off the 10m and 6m rigs until after breakfast tomorrow. Quite late in the day I spotted M0ICR (90km) on 6m WSPR. This is the only spot on 6m in several days of trying. Tomorrow I may only go on 10m.
Tony Benn - NOT amateur radio
In the UK we have a very right wing media (papers etc.) and Tony Benn was often the person they liked to ridicule and misquote. He always "stuck to his guns" and talked much good sense.
He died aged 88 of a stroke in 2014 after a long political career. He is a UK politician many loved to hate. Personally I think he deserves to be better understood and seen as "his own man" and not the man hated by the right wing press. Someone said, "he was a principled politician". We have very few of these today.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Benn .
ON4KST Chat
Many VHF, UHF and microwave enthusiasts use http://www.on4kst.com/chat/start.php to arrange skeds, certainly here in Europe. There are also chats for EME and for the LF and MF bands.
To use the facility you need a user name and password.
To use the facility you need a user name and password.
F2 on 10m WSPR
I see that lots of far Europeans and near Asians are spotting my 500mW 10m WSPR beacon including LZ, YO, RA3 and 4X. Nothing further yet. I think these are all single hop F2.
Still very quiet on 6m with no spots given or received on that band. I am still active on 6m, ever hopeful.
On 6m 30dBm 20% TX, 80% RX and on 10m 27dBm 100% TX with randomised TX frequency.
UPDATE 1500z: Not a single spot from North or South America today on 10m so far. I am surprised as F2 conditions on 10m looked so promising. Things may change, although I would have expected spots from these areas by now. 10m is indeed fickle with a mind of its own!
UPDATE 1528z: Eventually a 10m WSPR spot by K9AN (6505km) at 1518z. There have been other USA spots since. Not sure why 10m opened later today than yesterday?
UPDATE 1915z: It looks as if 10m USA openings will be most days now. These are the unique stations that spotted me on 10m WSPR today:
Still very quiet on 6m with no spots given or received on that band. I am still active on 6m, ever hopeful.
On 6m 30dBm 20% TX, 80% RX and on 10m 27dBm 100% TX with randomised TX frequency.
UPDATE 1500z: Not a single spot from North or South America today on 10m so far. I am surprised as F2 conditions on 10m looked so promising. Things may change, although I would have expected spots from these areas by now. 10m is indeed fickle with a mind of its own!
UPDATE 1528z: Eventually a 10m WSPR spot by K9AN (6505km) at 1518z. There have been other USA spots since. Not sure why 10m opened later today than yesterday?
UPDATE 1915z: It looks as if 10m USA openings will be most days now. These are the unique stations that spotted me on 10m WSPR today:
 |
| 10m WSPR unique spots today |
Sputniks again
Just received this email from Peter in The Netherlands...
"Hello to all Sputnikers/Vanguarders,
We spent two days in rain and cold on the island, so we expected visitor count to be low...
That tuned out not to be the case and as I already said: Putting old computers with a morse-key attached to it in a radio room generates questions, need for demonstration and a general unbelief that "we" actually could reveal all sorts of trials into text by simply listening while talking to somebody else...
As a result real radio was at times possible but we also had to cope with noise and power drops as the generator did not function 24/24.
I first tried 40 metres with the GRC9 and managed to make two QSO's, checked activity on 30 metres, sent some CQ's there on what I guessed must have been around 10.115 MHz but no response... I then unpacked my KX3 that I took with me as a last minute decision, to have a monitor and after checking the transmitted sigs decided to rapidly go back to 40 metres with the GRC9... Work to do.
I made three nice QSO's on 30 metres with the KX3 short before we had to arrange our leave for the day. It may be an island but I rather would not leave expensive things for the taking.
Sunday was just as rainy and cold. After switching on the GRC9 40 literally burst with activity with rapid 5NN's all over the place. Not a good environment to try a QSO using a simple superhet with DC-receiver-like bandwidth.
But even more visitors arrived that needed insight in what we were doing and more children that, once shown some action with a morse key, could hardly be persuaded to hand it over to someone else.
So: Did we make a lot of DX? No. But we did a lot of PR for CW, for Hamming and for showing that sending messages with simple means still is possible in this internet day-and-age...
72/73
Peter
PS: As I have no good pictures of this session, the attached photo is an older one I took on a similar summer session. Later we decided to use no more that two laptops as 4 in a row is near impossible to manage...:-)"
And this from Oleg...
"Dear Space Friends,
thanks Peter PA0PJE for interesting story/picture. Sure, new young PA operators will be on the air soon.
Sputnik Days finished. But somebody can send results before October 25. After that date an "officially" totals will be published. Thanks to all participants and readers! Even Sputnik Days closed but milliwatting is continued. Our discussion group is not closed, you can inform about your milliwatting news here."
"Hello to all Sputnikers/Vanguarders,
We spent two days in rain and cold on the island, so we expected visitor count to be low...
That tuned out not to be the case and as I already said: Putting old computers with a morse-key attached to it in a radio room generates questions, need for demonstration and a general unbelief that "we" actually could reveal all sorts of trials into text by simply listening while talking to somebody else...
As a result real radio was at times possible but we also had to cope with noise and power drops as the generator did not function 24/24.
I first tried 40 metres with the GRC9 and managed to make two QSO's, checked activity on 30 metres, sent some CQ's there on what I guessed must have been around 10.115 MHz but no response... I then unpacked my KX3 that I took with me as a last minute decision, to have a monitor and after checking the transmitted sigs decided to rapidly go back to 40 metres with the GRC9... Work to do.
I made three nice QSO's on 30 metres with the KX3 short before we had to arrange our leave for the day. It may be an island but I rather would not leave expensive things for the taking.
Sunday was just as rainy and cold. After switching on the GRC9 40 literally burst with activity with rapid 5NN's all over the place. Not a good environment to try a QSO using a simple superhet with DC-receiver-like bandwidth.
But even more visitors arrived that needed insight in what we were doing and more children that, once shown some action with a morse key, could hardly be persuaded to hand it over to someone else.
So: Did we make a lot of DX? No. But we did a lot of PR for CW, for Hamming and for showing that sending messages with simple means still is possible in this internet day-and-age...
72/73
Peter
PS: As I have no good pictures of this session, the attached photo is an older one I took on a similar summer session. Later we decided to use no more that two laptops as 4 in a row is near impossible to manage...:-)"
And this from Oleg...
"Dear Space Friends,
thanks Peter PA0PJE for interesting story/picture. Sure, new young PA operators will be on the air soon.
Sputnik Days finished. But somebody can send results before October 25. After that date an "officially" totals will be published. Thanks to all participants and readers! Even Sputnik Days closed but milliwatting is continued. Our discussion group is not closed, you can inform about your milliwatting news here."
Sunspots and 10m - Tues Oct 20th 2015
Both sunspot number and solar flux are higher. Sunspot number today is 94 (K=3) and for the first time in a while daytime 10m conditions ar expected to be "fair" rather than "poor". I am not surprised. We should expect decent 10m conditions today.
UPDATE 0918z: Well we are off to a promising start with spots on 10m already from EA8/LA3JJ (2870km) and RA3UDF (2693km). Both are probably F2 propagation. 6m is still quiet.
UPDATE 0918z: Well we are off to a promising start with spots on 10m already from EA8/LA3JJ (2870km) and RA3UDF (2693km). Both are probably F2 propagation. 6m is still quiet.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
