HF conditions

At the moment the higher HF bands are not in good shape. There is DX there sometimes, but it is not as easy to find as at the sunspot maximum. At the moment we are at solar minimum and it will be a few years before bands like 10m really spring back into life.

The video shows how good 10m can be in case you have forgotten! This was recorded in 2012.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/hfcondx

Walk around the village - NOT amateur radio

Most days we try to do a short walk.

According to my phone, we have walked 2.68 miles today. On the walk we bumped in to several friends and the rain held of.

We are home again.

Good session on 472kHz WSPR

Overnight was a good session for me on 472kHz WSPR. Running (at most) 10mW ERP from my earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground, I was spotted by quite a few stations (see photo). Notice that LA3EQ (769km) copied me multiple times!

472kHz WSPR TX last evening 

and overnight (10mW ERP)

472kHz WSPR RX last evening and overnight

UPDATE 1928z: A couple of spots by stations in the Netherlands this evening, but nothing yet from Norway. I am not sure if LA3EQ is on tonight. As last night, as many stations are spotting me (actually more) than I am spotting others. It suggests my ERP is a bit higher, but measurements suggest not. Perhaps more stations have better RX set-ups?

Sunspots - Monday October 7th 2019

Solar flux is 67 and the SSN 0. A=5 and K=1.

472kHz WSPR

I seem to have better optimised my matching transformer with the S/N being 1dB better on G1GKN who is like a beacon with me. I have been spotted by a couple of new UK stations in the last few hours and it is still daylight.

UPDATE 1843z: Already my 472kHz WSPR (10mW ERP, maybe less!) has been spotted in Norway 3 times and once in The Netherlands.

Miracle Antennas

It is some years since I last used my Miracle Whip. In fact, I am not even sure where it is! These days there are commercial alternatives as the original inventor became a SK in 2012. Now, please do not expect miracles from any of these. As I have said many times, a 56 inch whip can only be as good as a 56 inch whip, but with a counterpoise or ground they can work reasonably well on the higher HF bands. In their favour, they are small and convenient.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/antennas/mwhip

472kHz ERP

Despite having redone the calculations, I still cannot get a sensible figure.

All my sums seem to give me figures well below 10mW ERP, even if I assume the effective loop area is much bigger than I expected.

Now, it is entirely possible that I have made an error, but if the ERP is greater than 10mW I shall be very surprised. Perhaps I should take another look tomorrow.

ON4KST chat

This is a useful resource for arranging skeds and seeing what is happening on various bands. As often happens, I forgot my password so requested a new one. Nothing received.

So I tried re-registering. Again nothing received. I checked the SPAM folder - nothing.

Crap. I give up.

472kHz WSPR - no TX

For reasons I do not understand, it appears that my WSJT-X software decided to disable TX on 472kHz WSPR. I think this may have been the case for several hours. I manually enabled it again a few minutes ago. No reports resulted though!

G1GKN on 472kHz WSPR

G1GKN seems to be always copied. I am intrigued why the S/N is better now than earlier. It could be for several reasons. Has my noise floor dropped? I don't think so. Has the path loss dropped? I don't think so. Is he running more ERP? Not according to the WSPR database. Mystery.