Just...couldn't...resist...

When I bit the bullet in October and grabbed an as-new IC-746 for 2m work, the idea was to slowly get everything going over the winter, ready for maybe early April 2020.

But then - the Great Tropo Event!

So extensive, stable and long-lived has the last week's tropo been that some have taken to calling it the 'tropo of the decade'.

Forecast looks promising for more tropo. 

I couldn't comment, but the distances achieved with simple equipment might well lend some credence to that assertion.  After all, my own QSO with EA8 yesterday was achieved at both ends with 3-ele antennas (Yagi here, quad there), and 30-40W.

Such conditions are not yet over, although they are much weaker this morning.  By January 02, things look like they might get even stronger than last week, at least for a day or so.

So, having resisted the urge to buy a larger 2m Yagi for days, yesterday I took the plunge and ordered a 8-element.  In fact, I once had a 5-element quad which was extremely capable.  But it was a timber-and-wire homebrew, and those never last very long in the wet weather of Wales.

I had initially opted for an LFA from Innovantennas, the maker of my 12m Yagi.  Some of their Yagis now come with rubber grommet, friction-only securing for the elements, obviously with a view to portable assembly/disassembly.  This is no good for my windy location, as the rubber will soon perish and the elements start flying!

I did get a reply from Innovantennas about getting a clamped-element 'legacy' version supplied.  But when I asked about the price, an answer there came none.

Well, I can't hang around for e-mails, so I opted for the Antennas-Amplifiers Yagi, which seem to be well made and good value.  I was going to buy one direct from Serbia, but the shipping costs are quite high.

The 8-ele PA-144

Eventually, I discovered that several UK outlets sell these antennas, such that the final price (£128) is equal to or somewhat cheaper than the direct method - and without the potentially serious delays and hassle if something arrives broken in the post.

The 8-element is a good compromise between gain, price, physical size and windage.  Beyond 8 elements, the boom length starts to creep up to 4m quite quickly.  At 2.92m, the 8-ele is perfect for my purposes.  The overall ERP with maybe 120W out of my amplifer and the effect of considerable ground gain is likely to be around 13kW.

Although connectors at lossy VHF are to be avoided where possible, the on-board balun and N-connector is useful for when the antenna has to move, or rat-nibbled coax has to be replaced.  In the end, my EA8 QSO was made not with £9 per metre LR600, but with about 10m of spare RG-8X - hardly ideal, but it worked (and still only represented a ~1.5dB feeder loss at that length).  Never allow the perfect be the enemy of the good!

Setting a teacher straight.

Wales doesn't have a very good education system.  Until 2019, it was languishing as one of the worst-performing school systems in the world.

So maybe I shouldn't have been surprised recently when my daughter told me a teacher agreed with some of her less enlightened classmates that humans have never walked on the Moon's surface.

What?

Whilst the froth was forming in my mouth (Buzz Aldrin infamously punches people who come out with this trash), I was told the teacher believed rockets got there, but that the images are fake.

Fake, apparently.

Think about that kind of logic, coming from a secondary schoolteacher.  They agree we could get rockets there - which is admittedly kind of hard - but that having achieved that, it would be too difficult to capture photographs!
Well, I'll be setting the teacher straight, (but not with a punch!) in a forthcoming parents' evening.  Until then, it's worth having a look and listen to this great website (be sure to go on to the second part, too), which contains perhaps the best independent evidence of humans doing stuff on the Moon, provided by an amateur radio operator.

Of course, you can never persuade the idiotic, so they will simply claim these recordings are fake.  Life's easy when you're one of these people, but not very rewarding.

A cure for fake news

With yesterday's achievement of getting a signal - but no two-way QSO - into EA8, I was hopeful for something better this morning, as a vast plume of warm air from the tropics continues to sweep in over Europe, bringing record-breaking winter temperatures to the UK.

Peering over the flat roof, just 4m up, aimed at EA8 and D41

Whilst I was grabbing a coffee, I saw EA8CXN responding to my FT8 call at 30W to my tiny 3-ele Yagi.  I was so amazed that I seem to have switched the software to stop sending 'RR73', such that EA8CXN then resorted to sending a cryptic 'CFN EA8 CM'.  It took me too long in my early morning stupor to realise he wanted me to confirm!

Well, I sent the screenshots to a 2m SSB Facebook page to encourage others into activity.  A lot of people receiving my FT8 calls yesterday in mainland Spain were doing so with simple verticals and dipoles.

I haven't checked yet, but I suspect that there will be some negative people who will say that, because I didn't receive a RR73 from EA8CXN, it's not a valid QSO.

So, just to prove the point and blow the naysayers away completely, EA8CXN and I did it all over again from the start a few minutes later!

Now I'm wondering why I would want to spend £200 for a larger Yagi - at least until the summer Es season arrives!

Records and wisdom swept away.

Just a few years ago, I seem to remember that a CW QSO between the UK and EA8 was some sort of record, and featured on the front cover of RadCom.

Yesterday, the record distance on 2m was broken twice in the same day!  This is one area where FT8 is very welcome, and very effective.

Even with my 3-ele Yagi, I was able to clearly copy Cape Verde yesterday, although I couldn't reach him with such a small antenna and ~50W output.

But today, even my pathetic 2m station, which has yet to achieve full development, managed to reach EA8!  Sadly, nobody seems to have been at home there to send an answer (this is far too common at 2m).

Reaching with a 3-ele and 40W where only the 'big guns' could once hope for.

Despite the small antenna, HFTA terrain modelling shows a very healthy gain at very low angles, assisted by sloping ground to the sea, so the result is perhaps not so surprising:

All the textbooks are now out of date.  Frankly, this was clear a very long time ago.  But this week's 2m achievements have blown received wisdom clean out of the water.

Long live the new generation of amateur operators!

New hope for 2m - and Cape Verde in a 3-ele!

DX, anyone?  My ex-satellite 2m beam, only ~4m high (but 100m up on a hill)

Amazing tropo conditions, allowing even my tiny, station-in-development 3-ele Yagi to hear Cape Verde - at 4438km - on 144MHz today!

Seen today.  Could be a new record at 144MHz.

Hearing Cape Verde - on a 3 element!  Next time, I'll get him!

Given this record-breaking distance and general uptick in activity on 144MHz, things are looking much better for the 2m band than they were this time last year, when the prospect of losing it to aviation was considered very real.

The market remains sadly very underpopulated by more affordable 2m SSB transceivers.  But that may well change if the number of users keeps growing.

Strong winter tropo.  Image: F5LEN.org

Looking good for later tonight and tomorrow from Ireland and the western UK...  Image: F5LEN.org

Colwyn Bay Seaside /M

More seaside activity, this time from Colwyn Bay sea front, north Wales.

This turned out to be a great place to work short path to the east.  In the case of VK3GMZ, I was the only one outside of Australia to be heard by him on 14MHz WSPR (1W out of my mobile stick):

In the case of VK3KHZ as receiver, I had a median signal to him of -24dB, a full 10dB stronger than the only other UK station being heard (G0CCL, 5W), with few other stations from Europe making it at all:

And finally, in the case of HS0ZKM, I was 4dB stronger than the only other UK station being heard by him:

On my receive, I was blown away by the sheer strength of RX3AFE, whose signal I first thought was a very local one, within a few km of me.  At a peak of +18dB, with multiple spots as a result, this was amongst the strongest WSPR signals I've ever decoded, and up there with the few other similarly strong reports from Europe.  The 14MHz delta loop back home was receiving RX8AFE 6dB weaker than my simple mobile stick!

No matter how many times I operate with this simple equipment, I am always amazed by the outcome.  Remember, this was achieved not out on the sand with a golfing cart, coat and woolly hat, but simply by parking up, sitting comfortably in the warm car on the sea front, about 8 metres from the water.  Station is set up and down in 2 minutes.  Nothing quite brings a smile to my face as coastal /M operating!

Merry Christmas!

Here we are again.  Nearly the end of 2019, and looking forward to maybe a little more solar activity as 2020 progresses.

A big thanks to all my various fellow bloggers for their often very interesting posts, and a very Merry Christmas to you, whomever and wherever you are.  I hope Santa brings you at least a little something radio...

12m SSB!

Despite endless doom and gloom in the amateur radio press about the state of propagation, persistence usually breaks through into the open sunshine of a good DX contact, even on the higher bands.

15m was quite active this morning, with a number of VK stations coming in.  That is itself quite remarkable, seeing as a large swathe of VK-land is on fire.  We wish them well in coming through it all, and encourage their right-wing politicians to accept climate change is real, and affecting VK severely already.

Beautiful Namibia.  Image: Wikicommons/unidentified author.

As lunchtime approached, I saw V51WH appear on the cluster for 12m.  I was so transfixed on FT8 that it took me a few minutes to realise Gunter - whom I last spoke to way back in 2015, also on 12m - was actually at 24.950 - SSB!

On retuning, I could hear Gunter at R4-5, but with deep QSB.  As the minutes ticked by, he came up to about an S8.  I switched from the FT-450 and turned on the IC-746, which is a very beautiful sideband radio with audio that is hard to believe.  After a few calls, I managed a 52 into Namibia.

Although not rare, due to there still being plenty of ex-colonial German activity there, it's always nice to make a contact with Namibia, especially SSB at this dead point of the solar cycle.

Greenland

Last evening, I could see that the geomagnetic field was moderately disturbed, so I kept the 20m delta listening on WSPR all night long.

There were no unusual spots received here or spots of my signal overnight, but once again, G0CCL's signal, from just a couple of hundred km away, proved sensitive to the geomagnetic field.

The disturbance was picked up most clearly by magentometers in western Greenland. here showing the Z (vertical) component:

And here is how G0CCL's signal responded, suddenly reappearing out of the noise and into a fairly strong signal (grey area) as the field shifted:

More amazing WSPRs

I had another session at the beach this morning, sending 1W WSPR to the world from the usual Ampro 14MHz vertical stick antenna.

This time, my signal from the beach was heard by three fairly closely-spaced stations in China, with a best report of -20dB.  I have rarely seen China on my WSPR hit list before.

Only the typically-excellent monopole of G0CCL with a factory as a ground plane was the other European station to be heard there, although I was 10dB stronger, and being heard earlier (normally, G0CCL should be heard earlier due to being further east):

Once again, the signal from my vertical delta was completely unheard by any of the three Chinese stations.  That was also the case for LU1ESY1, who only heard my mobile stick.  Both antennas reached PY2GN, but the stick was 7dB stronger than the delta (-17dB vs. -24dB means):

MW1CFN/M being received (1W)

However, the delta did get a signal to a couple of ZL stations, but so did my stick antenna, albeit a different, SWL receiver.

The following morning, the robustness of the path from the coast, and how few other European stations were crossing it, proved itself again (the delta never got there):

And the following morning to BA7KW and BG8IBS:

Winter Es breaks out again!

Some very good DX appeared from about 09:30UT this morning, and continued into the afternoon.

Although it's actually very common to reach into the Indian Ocean on 12m, even at this dead state of the solar cycle, I was amazed to see FR4OO reporting reception of my 25W from the 3 ele LFA at a whopping +16dB!  That's almost certainly the strongest report I've ever had from the Indian Ocean since FT8 began.

Spectacular report from FR4OO.

A few minutes later, the propagation drops to almost nothing, but then recovered.

Sadly, there were absolutely no stations active in VK, and ZS took a while to wake up to the ongoing situation.  Eventually, I managed a couple of QSOs with ZS.


The afternoon looks likely to produce transatlantic openings at 12m.

Up at 10m, I was hearing 3B8CW, but with only a delta loop and being much too far north, my chances of reaching him were not good.  But there were plenty of strong European stations to be worked.

The Es seems to have been sparked locally over Europe by a strong front running across the middle of the continent.  Very unusually for this time of year, thunderstorms were active along and around that front, and were even seen here in north Wales last evening.

Strong front with thunderstorms over central Europe.

All the 10m reports were to the south of a thunderstorm front covering most of central Europe.

These storm disturbances, which propagate all the way up to mesosphere height, may well have provided the link from northern Europe to more southerly Es patches, and then on to the Indian Ocean.

Or it could have been another instance of the proposed propagation mechanism of the north-south teleconnection that was discussed here, and developed further here.

Dawn.

This morning, I upset my usual routine and took the mobile station down to the beach.

It was only 07:30UT when I got down there, and still pretty dark, made worse by heavy cloud cover and a 90km/h wind (oh, and by the Conservatives winning the general election overnight!)

At this time of year, at that time of day, and with the solar cycle at rock-bottom, I wasn't expecting an awful lot of success with 'real' QSOs.

But I was wrong!  I was getting strong 14MHz FT8 and FT4 QSOs from my 20W to a Ampro stick antenna with stations in Asiatic Russia right from the start.  These QSOs do not occur until about 90 minutes later when I am at home, using a full-sized delta loop.

Curiously, and perhaps because of the /M extension, PSKreporter was showing only a very small number of spots for my signal, which is a shame.

A very brief session of WSPR then ensued.  The first thing one always notices at the beach when tuning to WSPR is just how piercingly loud many of the received signals are.

Above: a handful of 14MHZ, 1W WSPR transmissions from the beach.

ZL3JE's reception at the time (3 hour span).  Note how small location differences in the UK yield vastly different paths.

ZL3JE was receiving only three stations from the UK at the time.  The table below lets you see how well a stick on top of the car performs at the beach, but in short, I was 5-13dB stronger than the other two stations (note that G0CCL increases to 20W output at 09:08UT).  G0CCL has a vertical monopole with a whole metal sheet factory complex as a ground plane.  MW0ATK has a windom, according to his WSPR page.

What's the point of repeatedly banging on about how good /M or /P operating can be?  Easy: the equipment is cheap, quick to deploy, and very, very effective (a stick antenna down the beach is likely to be as good as, or better than, a 3-ele Yagi at a more inland location).  If you have too much RFI locally, just move somewhere else!  If you have bad neighbours and/or local authorities, forget arguing with them all and go down the local beach or up a hilltop.  It's just so much easier, so less stressful.

Tales from the southern hemisphere

A very welcome WSPRer has recently appeared on a regular basis - CP6EE - from Bolivia.  Welcome, because there are precious few WSPR stations anywhere in the southern hemisphere.  Even the former British colonies like ZL, VK and ZS and their ex-pat operators now have very few WSPR stations.

Both CP6EE and DP0GVN saw increases in signal levels as a small disturbance of the geomagnetic field passed around the local magnetic midnight period here last night.  Note the sharp spike in Z component direction at the centre of the plot. 

Z component, eastern Greenland.  Image: Tromso Geophysical Laboratory.

CP6EE's received signal here responded to this disturbance, rising from low levels at 21:00UT and peaking at 21:20UT.  The signal continues to be stronger than before the disturbance for a long time after it occurs, so the increased signal has nothing to do with the greyline at either point on the globe:

CP6EE heard at MW1CFN

DP0GVN, receiving my 1W signal, also saw a smaller level peak, occurring at 22:00UT:

DP0GVN hearing my 1W.

WSPRnet limits

I can never understand the man who runs the WSPRnet site.  The pages are slow and often fail for days or weeks on end.

Now, the new database search has been limited to a maximum 500 spots.  This is useless for propagation research, because a day's operating will typically see a lot more than 500 - and often much more than the old limit of 999.

UPDATE: Following the appearance of this post, the owner of WSPRnet has reversed the 500 spot limit back to 1000 spots (1 more than the earlier 999 limit!)

Why doesn't the WSPRnet owner either give it to someone else to improve, or else start charging a modest amount per year to fund its development?  It's a total and long-running mystery that isn't helping anyone.

In the meantime, you can still merrily go to the old database, where the limit isn't 500, or 1000, but 10,000 spots.  Go figure!

Update on the higher-HF bands DX of December 01, 2019.

On December 1st, there was a remarkable set of solar minimum openings on 12 and 10m from Europe into the antipodes.

A day later, I commented that this unusual and rare propagation could be related to the approaching austral midsummer.

NLC seen from Dunedin, NZ, on the same day as unusual upper HF DX opened up.  (C) Mirko Harnisch

A few days after the event, I learn from Spaceweather.com that noctilucent clouds were definitively seen from Dunedin, New Zealand - at a latitude of 45 degrees south - on the same day as the propagation event.  This is the only known sighting of NLC so far from the south pole; the equivalent position in the north encompasses, for example, southern France and northern Italy.  NLC are also being seen further from the north pole in the northern hemisphere.

The rather sensationalist claims by the media about the planetary waves boosting NLC are a bit silly.  Planetary waves have been known about for many decades, and are well understood to modulate NLC with various periodicities of one to several days.  The 5-day wave mentioned in the article is one of the strongest and most-easily detected planetary waves.
  
The fact of the unusual EU-VK propagation at higher HF and the sighting of the very extensive NLC from ZL is almost certainly not a coincidence, given that Es, PMSE and related phenomena can all arise from the same underlying mechanism.

That mechanism is one of a warming midsummer troposhere yielding a strongly cooling mesosphere owing to upwelling and gravity wave activity.  NLC form around meteor debris, and the debris-ice particles, just nanometers across, are highly charged surfaces - which is where the radio propagation relationship comes in.

UPDATE (2): Non-summer mesospheric echoes appeared over central Wales today (06/12/2019), as seen by the MST radar near Aberystwyth.  The radar isn't quite working at optimum settings at the moment, but the winter echoes are certainly there, roughly between 10UT and 14UT:

In the northern hemisphere, summer 50MHz propagation from Europe to JA is often seen, and has also been related to NLC/PMSE.

The data from AIM satellite confirms the very northerly extent of part of the NLC formation.  On 08/12/2019, the NLC was continuing to appear at near 50 degrees south.

Yet another JTDX update.

The JTDX developer is certainly very busy these past few days.  This morning saw the release of another internal review release candidate - version 145_1.

The new internal review version adds a fourth decoding pass to WSPR.  Although I am now testing this RC myself, the developer's own data suggests a modest increase (~2%, based on .wav recordings) in sensitivity over even very recent update versions. 

Credit where it's due.

As any regular readers will know, I'm not a big fan of FT8, although I accept it has been very useful in maintaining contact as the Sun sleeps.

Good conditions for 2m today.

Where FT8 is having a very positive impact is at 144MHz, where there is always plenty of activity whenever conditions look reasonable.

A modest 'lift' today, under a high pressure system, brought out plenty of operators across the UK, with a few French stations also making it across.  It's nice to see the 2m waterfall with plenty of signals...

Plenty of signals, even if my receive volume is too low (lines on screen!)

DX on 12m!

Yesterday morning saw a very good opening from Europe to VK at 24MHz.  It's a long time since I saw VK on that band.  Others report that VK appeared on 10m also.

Unfortunately, I was slightly too far north to achieve a QSO on FT8 with low power, but others in southern parts of the UK, and across mainland Europe, were successful.

Part of the wintertime Es story? (C) MW1CFN

There was no obvious geomagnetic cause for this path to open.  At this time of year, a newly-discovered teleconnection at mesospheric height (~85km) between the southern and northern hemisphere strengthens again as the austral midsummer approaches.  We're currently just 20 days from that point.  At the equivalent stage in the northern season, strong Es and other high altitude phenomena, such as NLC, would be appearing regularly and strongly.

So maybe yesterday's opening was a form of multi-hop Es, assisted by the north-south flow of air, incorporating conductive material from meteor ablation, covered in charged ice, at altitude.  It's interesting to wonder, certainly...

Latest on JTDX RC144_5

 
After 39 of my own WSPR recordings at 14MHz were analysed yesterday, it's now possible to say that the latest JTDX update, which is not generally available at the moment, has a 2.7% better decode rate than WSJT-X 2.1.2.

[UPDATE 1: after an overnight listening session on 40m, the 2.7% improvement fell to just 0.5% with a much larger (1049) sample of decodes.  WSJT-X managed to decode 1044 of these.

UPDATE 2: a roughly 18 hour listening session at 14MHz resulted in 728 decodes, 717 of which were decoded by WSJT-X, yielding a 1.5% advantage to JTDX.] 

I had a look at which signals WSJT-X was failing to decode.  It's all a bit odd, because there were two signals of -25 and -26dB, and one of +3dB.  None of the signals were very close to other traces, so I can't figure out what WSJT-X is doing.  The difference appears from time to time, regardless of how strong propagation is at that moment.

UPDATE: -30 and -31dB signals are being decoded regularly by JTDX now.  It is also getting down to -34dB so far, which is as low as the alternative WSJT-X goes:

2019-11-29 13:20

LA7EPA

14.097191

-34

0

JP99of

5

Set yourself free!

This morning, I was out and about in the car, when I decided there was some time to do a little operating near the sea, simply by pulling up at the roadside.

Now, I know I've written about this before.  But it is worth reminding those new, or not so new to the hobby that, if operating from home is difficult or impossible due to bad neighbours, housing association rules or, as so many of us now face, increasing RFI, then all is not lost.

Not lost at all, in fact.  Some years ago, I remember the ARRL's magazine, 'QST', expressing some surprise and perhaps rather suggesting it was a very second-rate thing to be, when a survey found a good proportion of operators only ever operated away from the home.

About three quick cycles of 1W WSPR at 14MHz, during very poor propagation, from the car - brilliant!

Well, I have never forgotten the old saying: 'never put all your eggs in one basket'.  Investing heavily in radio equipment based at home is almost inevitably going to lead to anger and disappointment when, one day, something causes RFI that you can't overcome.  In domestic and urban settings, it's simply going to happen, sooner or later, and no regulator I know of is going to help you much.

Far better to keep a few whips in your car, together with a rig in the boot, and a Raspberry Pi for digital modes.  I only need to switch the rig on and plug the Pi into 12V, and I'm up and running in a minute or so.  It really is a great feeling of freedom, even if you don't have any imminent RFI problems back home.

Better still, if you can access the coast, there's a good 10dB extra gain to be had by operating from near the sea, which in my book is a much easier way to get a better signal than investing in an expensive tower, Yagi and all the maintenance those things need. 

If you can't get to the sea, then anywhere with a less cluttered, open horizon than one typically gets at home is likely to be a big improvement.

So, if you have a thousand Chinese switch mode PSUs buzzing away, don't worry.  Just get in the car and escape it all!

Sad accident.

If you've ever heard of the radio navigation aids LORAN and/or eLORAN, then you may have heard of Professor David Last, who was heavily involved in these systems' development.

Sadly, news arrived yesterday afternoon that a Cessna-172SP aircraft had ditched into the sea off the coast of Anglesey, during calm, fairly clear weather.
 

Professor David Last.

This afternoon, it was confirmed the pilot, lost and presumed dead, was David.  The flight recordings from his transponder showed he was in straight and level flight, when the plane suddenly entered a modest but sustained descent into the sea, hitting the surface at 134 knots.

David seems to have started suffering a heart attack or stroke just after 11:34UT whem the airspeed begins to vary before a descent, with increasing airspeed, into the sea (top right on map).

There was no indication at all that 79-year old David, an extremely experienced and instrument-rated pilot, tried to glide the aircraft towards land as would happen following an engine problem, presumably because he suffered a heart attack or stroke.

I last saw David at my father-in-law's funeral in the spring, which makes 2019 a rather more horrible year than one would wish for.

The services continue to look for the aircraft and David's body, with only small aircraft debris having been recovered thus far.