Here is this week’s space weather and geophysical report, issued 2020 Jul 27 0132 UTC.

Highlights of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 20 – 26 July 2020

Solar activity was very low throughout the period. New Region 2767 (S21, L=200, class/area Hsx/120 on 26 Jul) rotated onto the disk on 21 Jul, but was quiet and stable. A slow-moving, partial halo CME was detected in coronagraph imagery in the NE quadrantat at about 19/1135 UTC. Subsequent model analysis indicated an Earth-directed component would likely become geoeffective on 24-25 Jul. No other CME activity was detected during the period.

No proton events were observed at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit was at normal to moderate levels throughout the period.

Geomagnetic field activity was at quiet levels 20-23 Jul. Field conditions reached unsettled to active levels on 24-25 Jul due to effects from the 19 Jul CME. A return to quiet conditions was observed on 26 Jul. Solar wind parameters reflected enhanced conditions on 24-25 Jul as a result of CME effects. Solar wind speeds increased from approximately 300 km/s to near 415 km/s. Total field peaked at 11 nT while the Bz component dropped south to -10 nT. Density levels increased to 28 particles/cc. Ambient solar wind parameters were present on 20-23 Jul and 26 Jul.

Forecast of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 27 July – 22 August 2020

Solar activity is expected to be very low throughout the outlook period.

No proton events are expected at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit is expected to be at normal to moderate levels thoughout the outlook period.

Geomagnetic field activity is expected to be quiet to unsettled on 28-29 Jul due to a negative polarity CH HSS. Quiet conditions are expected to prevail throughout the rest of the outlook period.

Don’t forget to visit our live space weather and radio propagation web site, at: http://SunSpotWatch.com/

Live Aurora mapping is at http://aurora.sunspotwatch.com/

If you are on Twitter, please follow these two users: 1. https://Twitter.com/NW7US 2. https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

Be sure to subscribe to our space weather and propagation email group, on Groups.io

https://groups.io/g/propagation-and-space-weather

Spread the word!

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

Links of interest:

+ Amazon space weather books: http://g.nw7us.us/fbssw-aSWSC
+ https://Twitter.com/NW7US
+ https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

Space Weather and Ham Radio YouTube Channel News:

I am working on launching a YouTube channel overhaul, that includes series of videos about space weather, radio signal propagation, and more.

Additionally, I am working on improving the educational efforts via the email, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, and other activities.

You can help!

Please consider becoming a Patron of these space weather and radio communications services, beginning with the YouTube channel:

https://www.patreon.com/NW7US

The YouTube channel:
https://YouTube.com/NW7US

..

The new location for Endfed....Shingles are my next project

When we moved into our place last August I set up my Endfed as a temp setup and as with most things temp soon becomes long term. My excuse was I just had major house "things" on the go that required my attention. Over the winter the temporary support at one end of the Endfed was starting to show some major wear. I decided to stick with an Endfed antenna as with my lot size it was the best option for me.

The new spot for the antenna

 I was doing some reading on the internet regarding Endfed antennas and the ideal wire lengths. For the size of my lot, the length that was ideal for me was 41 feet. My plan was to remove the balun from the tree it was located in and mount it on my newly renovated shed....now in the pictures the shingles have not been done yet but that is my next project and the shed will be complete. The 41-foot Endfed antenna wire would extend back out to the tree. I guess you could say I just reversed the setup. This setup allowed me to lower the balun to about 6 feet off the ground and have the antenna slope in an upward direction. This setup would allow me to add a counterpoise to the Endfed. When the Balun was located in the tree it was about 25 feet off the ground and I was advised by Ultimax antenna the balun was too high off the ground for a counterpoise to work, I did try it without success. 

Splice making 34 to 41 feet

80. 4.000. 7.5
80. 3.500. 6.7
40. 7.001. 3.2
40. 7.070. 3.3
30. 10.100. 5.0
30. 10.150. 5.0
20. 14.001. 1.8
20. 14.070. 1.7
17. 18.068. 1.6
17. 18.168. 1.6
21. 21.001. 2.6
21. 21.070. 2.6

80. 4.000. 9.1
80. 3.500. 9.6
40. 7.001. 4.4
40. 7.070. 4.4
30. 10.100. 5.0
30. 10.150. 5.0
20. 14.001. 2.4
20. 14.070. 2.3
17. 18.068. 2.0
17. 18.168. 2.0
21. 21.001. 2.6
21. 21.070. 2.7

80. 4.000. 7.0
80. 3.500. 8.1
40. 7.001. 1.8
40. 7.070. 1.8
30. 10.100. 3.3
30. 10.150. 3.3
20. 14.001. 4.6
20. 14.070. 4.6
17. 18.068. 2.5
17. 18.168. 2.5
21. 21.001. 1.5
21. 21.070. 1.5

80. 4.000. 6.5
80. 3.500. 9.1
40. 7.001. 5.2
40. 7.070. 5.2
30. 10.100. 2.2
30. 10.150. 2.2
20. 14.001. 4.9
20. 14.070. 4.9
17. 18.068. 2.7
17. 18.168. 2.6
21. 21.001. 1.6
21. 21.070. 1.5

In 2018, Joyce/K0JJW and I did a trip to the Black Hills area of South Dakota to do some SOTA activations:  Dakota SOTA Adventure.   We really enjoyed that part of South Dakota and figured we would be back. The Black Hills top out at ~7200 feet and the climbs are usually interesting but not very difficult. There are plenty of SOTA summits to choose from and the scenery is beautiful.

This summer we found ourselves on a road trip returning to Colorado from Wisconsin, so we decided to swing by South Dakota for a couple of days. Joyce is getting close to achieving the coveted SOTA Mountain Goat award (1000 activator points), so we were looking to add to her activator score. I’m not saying we only did easy summits but we pretty much did easy summits.

Looking at the SOTA database, we scanned for summits with 6 points or higher that also had a significant number of activations. On this trip, we were driving our Class B RV (basically a big honkin’ van with RV gear in it). This limited our choice of SOTA summits to ones that can be accessed via reasonably good roads. We were fine with the typical gravel US Forest Service road in good condition but not anything worse.

We connected up with Don/K0DAJ who we met at a hamfest in Loveland, CO earlier this year. Don reviewed my list of potential summits and provided valuable feedback and additional summit suggestions. Don also alerted the local hams that might want to get on the air to work us. We use VHF/UHF exclusively for SOTA, so it is easy to get skunked if there isn’t anyone around. (I found out later that Gary/KT0A also passed along the word for us.)

The SOTA Summits

We identified seven summits that we wanted to activate, which would provide 56 new activator points. They ended up being clumped into three northern summits, around Deadwood, and four southern summits southwest of Rapid City. We camped at a USFS campground in between the two clumps, activating the northern three on the first day and the southern summits on the second day.

Terry Peak (W0D/NW-002)

Terry Peak is a drive-up mountain with a short hike up to an observation platform.  We approached Terry Peak from the south on Terry Summit Road, off of Hwy 85/Hwy 14A. The Black Hills National Forest map is very helpful for finding all of these summits.

We discovered that Terry Peak is quite the tourist spot and several groups of people showed up while we were there.  It is also a big radio site with over a dozen towers and many more transmitters. When we parked, I noticed that the VHF/UHF mobile transceiver in the RV had both S meters pegged at full scale on all frequencies. Rut Roh, there is probably some RF around here. As usual, we had the Yaesu FT-90 transceiver which has a robust receiver in it, and it performed well. Still, I noticed that strong signals would abruptly drop down to being almost unreadable when some transmitter on the site turned on.

Mount Theodore Roosevelt (W0D/NW-023)

Mount Theodore Roosevelt turned out to be a pleasant surprise with a really good trail to the summit (0.4 miles one way, less than 200 feet elevation gain).

Also, at the summit, there is a tower that was built in honor of President Roosevelt. This is a fun little hike with a monument at the summit.

We climbed the stairs leading to the top of the tower and operated from inside it. The tower reminds me of the many lighthouses we’ve been inside, but it’s not nearly as tall, and no light.

Unnamed Summit – 5110 (W0D/NW-038)

For a third summit, Don suggested an easy-to-access unnamed summit (5110), W0D/NW-038. We got there by driving south from Sturgis on Vanocker Canyon Road (26), then west on Galena Road to USFS 171.1. Driving a short distance north on 171.1 got us to an open area where we parked. Then it was just a bushwack up the hill (no trail), 0.3 miles one way with an elevation gain of 400 feet.

Day 2 was a repeat of summits that we did in 2018, so I won’t repeat all of that here: Odakota Mountain (W0D/BB-002), Bear Mountain (W0D/BB-029), Coolidge Mountain (W0D/BB-012) and Rankin Ridge (BB-089). Refer to the 2018 trip report for more info.

This time, Odakota Mountain was extra special because Don/K0DAJ joined us on the summit.

There is an actual summit marker for Odakota, so I had to get a photo of me standing there.

Most of the contacts were on 146.52 MHz, a few on 446.0 MHz. Joyce’s log and my log are pretty much the same but I did work a few more stations. In summary, we had QSOs with these stations during the two days: AD0HL, K0DAJ, KB0QDG, KC0WC, KD0AYN, KF0AFX, KF0ARA, KF0XO, KF7ZQL, NC0K, W0LFB, W0NIL, W0SEB, W0SSB, W5LJM, W7LFB, WN6QJN and WS0V. Thank you to each and every one of you for getting on the air!

In Colorado, we pretty much work Colorado stations on VHF from the summits, so it was fun to contact other states on this trip. From Bear Mountain, we worked W0NIL and W0SSB in Chadron, NE, about 90 miles away.  Not too shabby. From Terry Peak, we worked Clem/KF7ZQL in Carlile, WY at a distance of 50 miles. Not as far, but another state in the log.

We caught AD0HL and KF0ARA on unnamed summit 6167 (W0D/BB-008) from both Odakota Mountain and Bear Mountain, for two Summit-to-Summit (S2S) contacts. We also got two S2S contacts with Don/K0DAJ:  Crooks Tower from Terry Peak and Terry Peak from Mount Theodore Roosevelt.  It was kind of an S2S festival!

Don/K0DAJ and Terry/AD0HL worked us on 6 of the 7 summits, so they were our most prolific chasers. Thanks, guys! Finally, special thanks to Don for the helpful advice and joining us to play radio in the Black Hills.

We were able to get our minimum 4 QSOs on each summit and usually had many more. This resulted in 56 activator points, so we are quite happy with that.  We have just sampled a few of the many SOTA summits in the Black Hills area, so I suspect that we will be back for more.

73 Bob K0NR

The post Return to Dakota SOTA appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

It's time once again for The Weekender. This is our bi-weekly departure into the world of amateur radio contests, open source conventions, special events, listener challenges, hedonism and just plain fun. Thanks for listening and, if you happen to get a chance, feel free to call us or e-mail and send us some feedback. Tell us how we're doing. We'd love to hear from you.

73 de The LHS Crew

Welcome to the 357th installment of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts talk about the new amateur radio youth database, Mortty, the Icom IC-705, an open-source COVID-19 tracker, TrueNAS, SDR++ and much more. Stay safe and sane out there and thank you for listening.

73 de The LHS Crew

Here is this week’s space weather and geophysical report, issued 2020 Jul 20 0242 UTC.

Highlights of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 13 – 19 July 2020

Solar activity was very low throughout the period. No active regions with sunspots were observed over the past week. The passage of a slow-moving CME from 08 Jul was observed on 13-14 Jul. Near the end of the period, a faint, slow-moving CME was observed off the western limb in STEREO-A imagery beginning at around 19/0524 UTC. Analysis of this event remains underway at the time of this writing.

No proton events were observed at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit was at normal-to-moderate levels throughout the period.

Geomagnetic field activity reached active levels between 13/0000-0900 UTC due to a combination of positive polarity CH HSS and CME (08 Jul) effects. Quiet to unsettled conditions were observed on 13 Jul. Quiet conditions were observed throughout the remainder of the period.

Forecast of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 20 July – 15 August 2020

Solar activity is expected to be very low throughout the outlook period.

No proton events are expected at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit is expected to be normal-to-moderate throughout the outlook period.

Geomagnetic field activity is expected to be quiet to unsettled on 23-24 Jul and 31 Jul-01 Aug. Quiet conditions are expected to prevail throughout the rest of the period.

Don’t forget to visit our live space weather and radio propagation web site, at: http://SunSpotWatch.com/

Live Aurora mapping is at http://aurora.sunspotwatch.com/

If you are on Twitter, please follow these two users: 1. https://Twitter.com/NW7US 2. https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

Be sure to subscribe to our space weather and propagation email group, on Groups.io

https://groups.io/g/propagation-and-space-weather

Spread the word!

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

Links of interest:

+ Amazon space weather books: http://g.nw7us.us/fbssw-aSWSC
+ https://Twitter.com/NW7US
+ https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

Space Weather and Ham Radio YouTube Channel News:

I am working on launching a YouTube channel overhaul, that includes series of videos about space weather, radio signal propagation, and more.

Additionally, I am working on improving the educational efforts via the email, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, and other activities.

You can help!

Please consider becoming a Patron of these space weather and radio communications services, beginning with the YouTube channel:

https://www.patreon.com/NW7US

The YouTube channel:
https://YouTube.com/NW7US

..

In this episode, Martin M1MRB is joined by Dan Romanchik KB6NU, Edmund Spicer M0MNG and Ruth Willet KM4LAO to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief and this episode’s feature is Radio Questions Answered.

ICQ AMATEUR/HAM RADIO PODCAST DONORS

We would like to thank Daryll McCaffrey, Ed Efchak (WX2R), Andrew Whybrow (M0IRU), David Bowie, Ed Jones (K8MEJ), Phil Heckingbottom (VK6ADF), Dino Papas KLØS, Gayln True Hall and two anonymous donors along with our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate

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