Japan worked from Europe on 6m

Right on schedule the path across the pole from Europe to Japan has opened up on 6m again this late spring, at least for well equipped high powered 6m operators. The distances are amazing (around 10,000kms) yet this path opens up most (every?) year at this time. Whether or not this is really multi-hop Es is very debatable. Once again it proves there is still much we do not understand about HF/VHF propagation. Amateur radio is continuing to add to scientific knowledge.

Now, wouldn't I like to work JA on 6m with my vertical and a few watts!

10m (and 15m) DSB rig ideas

The GQRP club sell xtals for 24.906MHz for £2 each. They also sell 3.58 and 3.68MHz ceramic resonators at 50p each. Now, mix 24.906 with either 3.58 o 3.68 with an NE/SE602 and you end up with a stable and simple mixer-VFO (when the ceramic resonator is pulled in a VXO) covering two very useful parts of the 10m SSB band or the 15m SSB band. All it needs is a filter on the output to select 10m or 15m injection. I have ordered the xtals and ceramic resonators and will start on the mixer-VFO when the parts come.

My idea is to use the VFO with a simple DSB TX and DC receiver. Such an arrangement will give a simple 10m (or 15m) DSB transceiver covering very useful parts of either band, but with few parts.

Antennas for 6m DXing?

Dave ON8WW sent me an email asking me about what antenna to use for 6m DXing. I replied saying that all I had on the band was a triband vertical colinear (the Diamond V2000) but this has allowed me to work over 50 countries on the band with QRP SSB/CW (best DX >5000kms). It is mounted just above the guttering at about 7m above ground level.

6m is an odd band in that there is not a lot of local SSB traffic (I think) and when the band does open up for either Es or F2 propagation the polarisation probably doesn't matter. Certainly I am able to work (at least) as much DX with the vertical on 6m as I used to work with a rotatable horizontal dipole. The antenna works very well for local (and DX) QSOs on 6m, 2m and 70cms FM of course.

OK, if you want to work marginal propagation modes (e.g. MS using JT6m) or tropo DX then a beam would help. But, if you are prepared to go DX hunting when the band is open, then I think a simple vertical is all you need.

10m/6m Sporadic-E update

It usually happens about now: after the first few weeks of frantic Es activity on 10m and 6m working around Europe (after months of silence), activity starts to drop off. The band is open to somewhere but people are less interested in working you unless you are a new country.

The next excitement is looking for more distant Es openings - into the Middle East, North & South America and the Caribbean. So far this year I've yet to hear a transatlantic opening on either 10m or 6m, but it is still quite early, so I remain hopeful.

Monitoring Monthly - gone

Monitoring Monthly, the UK magazine catering for SWLs and scanner enthusiasts, ceased publication last month with May 09 being the last edition. Their website is still in place for electronic copies to be retrieved.

One wonders, in current market conditions, how well (or not) some of the other ham radio and SWL magazines and ham equipment traders are managing. Anyone know?

LA1TPA - a fellow QRPer

Just got this nice email from a fellow QRPer, Mads LA1TPA, from Norway. Mads, I hope to work you soon on HF or 6m QRP. In this part of the UK there are no mountains to climb with the highest being less than 150m! There are a lot more in the rest of the UK though and I think SOTA is a great idea.

Hello Roger
My name is Mads and I'm a Norwegian QRPer. I'm writing you to tell you that I really enjoy reading your Ham Radio Blog. I got my licence in 2005 and my main interests are Summits On The Air activations and QRP DXCC hunting. I also write a QRP Blog myself: http://la1tpa-qrp.blogspot.com/. I'm a G-QRP member and attended the Rishworth convention last year and also intend to go there this year. Hope to work you 2-way QRP one day.

72
Mads LA1TPA

6m PSK31

Just heard CT1ESJ working an ON station on 6m PSK31. Not thought of using this mode on 6m, but it could be pretty useful for working DX on the band. Certainly the PSK31 area around 50.250 was quite quiet.

Incidentally, I was using Pocket-Digi on my Dell Axim PDA to do the decoding just picking up the signal from the loudspeaker.

7X, EA8 and CT3 on 10m QRP SSB

Sporadic E was good today on 10m allowing QRP SSB QSOs with 7X4AN, EA8CEQ and CT3FQ with the halo antenna. 32 countries worked so far on 10m QRP this year, although there are quite a few "easy" countries still missing, so the total should climb somewhat further before the summer ends. By the autumn the sunspot count should be climbing, so we may get some transatlantic F2 layer propagation this year.

10m very short skip

Just worked EI7JN in Dublin on 10m SSB. He gave me a 59 report. When the skip is this short on 10m it usually suggests the Es MUF is getting very high, so expect 2m to open shortly if not already open for Es DX.

ZB2FK on 10m and 6m

In the course of a week I've managed to work ZB2FK on both 10m and 6m QRP. No great distance, but I don't recall working Gibraltar before, apart from ZB2VHF on 4m when I was at Liverpool University (G3OUL) in the late 1960s when running 4W AM!