AmateurRadio.com

Thursday brought more great 10m propagation. Take a look at the screen-grab below.

10m WSPR signals received on G4ILO’s attic dipole

The bright trace at the top right is the 10 watt signal of W3CSW at 11dB over noise. That is one of the strongest WSPR traces I’ve ever seen, and definitely the strongest signal from a station outside Europe. I think it has to be double-hop Sporadic-E propagation. It is interesting that my previous spot of the same station was 11dB below the noise. My 2 watts produced a positive result from his side as well.

Tuning around the 10m band and there was not the wall of loud signals that such good propagation would suggest. A couple of good old boys from Mississippi and Tennessee were chewing the rag, oblivious to the fact that their signals were bending S meter needles thousands of miles away. But apart from those few stations there was an absence of signals. A station I worked called CQ with no takers for some time afterwards. I tried CQing myself, with no result. To me this also shows that the enhanced propagation was very selective, supporting the theory that it was Sporadic-E propagation.

10m signals spotted by G4ILO, 27/9/2012

I did make a couple more SSB contacts but once again the digital sector provided the best returns for my efforts.

There is yet more interesting 10m propagation today. I have already spotted stations from VK2 and from Thailand. It’s a shame you can’t WSPR and operate on the same band at the same time. Or rather, it’s a shame that I can’t. So I’ll switch between modes, running WSPR when I’m not actually in the shack and able to use the keyboard or mic.

Ten metres has been wide open today. Stations have been heard or worked in just about all directions. I ran 2 watts of WSPR during the periods that I wasn’t in the shack and the program screen resembled 30m!

WSPR spots on 10m at G4ILO, 26/9/2012

After a short period of WSPR I switched to voice mode and made a nice SSB contact with Ken, JA2FJP near Nagoya (nothing to do with cheap Chinese antennas!) After a rubber-stamp contact with R100BG I found phone a bit hard going with all the QRM and pileups so I retreated to the more restful pastime of working digimodes.

Digital stations hrd/wkd at G4ILO, 26/9/2012

I made one more Japanese contact – with JI4POR – and made my first-ever China contact – with BG8GAM – all on PSK31. I heard several more stations from those countries and also one from Korea (South, presumably) and one from Indonesia but didn’t manage to work them. Better luck next time!

A session of calling CQ produced an endless succession of Russian stations. Where do they all come from? There is no chance of working interesting DX unless you search and pounce on the DX stations. Even when calling a specific DX station I was being called by Russian stations! Why do they do it? I lost the chance of a couple of first contacts because of it.

As the afternoon wore on many stations from North America and Canada started to be in evidence. My final PSK31 contact for the day was with Bob KZ0G in Missouri which is probably a first for that state for me.

Not a bad haul for a few hours listening / operating using a maximum of 40 watts PSK31 to an attic dipole. I wish there were more days like that!

A DX Sherlock VHF propagation alert popped into my mailbox this afternoon to warn me about a possible Sporadic-E opening on 6 metres.

6m Sporadic-E opening 29 Apr 2012

My K3 was WSPRing on 10m at the time and when I went to look several new stations had been spotted indicating the presence of short skip propagation.

10m WSPR spots at G4ILO

I switched to 6m but very few WSPR stations were active and no spots were made or received. I tuned the receiver and heard a weak Polish station on SSB but the opening was over and no contacts were made.

Still, it is good to see some activity on the “magic band.” Things can only get better!

A different picture of 10m propagation than a week ago. The band was dead for most of the morning. Then I started to receive and be spotted by German stations at around 1200km distance – weak Sporadic-E I think.

10m WSPR spots for G4ILO – 13 April 2012

Someone asked me whether these WSPR spots were obtained using the Propeller beacon I have been writing about. I’m afraid not. I haven’t managed to solve the frequency stability problems of my Gadget Gangster board so I’ve been using my K3 for transmit and receive.

This year I have decided to focus on the high frequency bands – 10m and 6m – this spring and summer. The predictions for the peak of this solar cycle are not very good, as you can read in several blogs, but it’s all we’re going to get for the next 10 years so I may as well make the best of it.

To this end I have started WSPRing on 10m when I switch on in the morning, with the intention of moving up to 6m if there appears to be a chance of propagation. On the previous few days I have been rewarded with a two-way path to VK on 10m at quite decent signal strengths. Not bad for 5 watts to an attic dipole. But today I received not a single spot, not a single trace.

Although not the reason for the lack of spots today, I think there is a gremlin in the machine. Twice I have come up to the shack to see what is happening and found the K3 in transmit mode but with no RF output. The K3 monitor mode shows no audio is being sent to the radio, so it isn’t a radio problem. The WSPR software settings haven’t changed, and are correct. Restarting the program makes no difference. The only solution is that hoary old first resort of the computer technician: Switch it off and then switch it on again. Works every time. But I wish I knew why it is doing it.

At the weekend I noticed that the CQ WW WPX phone contest was on. I’m not a fan of phone contests – hollering your call into a mic over and over again is not my idea of fun – but I thought it might be interesting to see what I could hear or work on 10m when so many stations were on.

In the end I only made a handful of contacts. It was just too manic for my current state of mind. I couldn’t remember the serial numbers I was given before typing them into the log, so I would have to wait for the station I worked to make another contact and see what the next serial number was. I much prefer CW contests using a code reader to print up the exchange so that I can just double-click the information to enter it error-free in the log.

I’ve just started my final cycle of chemotherapy and it has knocked me back a bit. So I think I’ll stick to pastimes like WSPR and JT65 that have a more relaxed pace until I’m feeling better.

With all the news about giant solar flares that could black out communications I was surprised to hear activity on 10 metres. I made a few contacts on SSB with my attic dipole, including A65EE in Dubai and TC2012WKD from Turkey: a special event station for World Kidney Day to raise awareness of the importance of kidneys to our health.

I like to operate on the highest frequencies I can. On the shortest wavelengths small antennas are at the least disadvantage.