Worst band conditions ever?

How's your operating experience these days?  Over here, apart from brief periods of good upper HF conditions, propagation is, without doubt, the worst I can remember over the last 10 years, and has been so for a good two or three weeks now.

Even 2m is pretty dead today, with very limited propagation to the northeast of England.  On most days prior to this hiatus, I can get to most parts of the UK, northern France and Belgium.  But not these days!

Ah well!  Best I could do today was to be in awe of the cumulonimbus clouds building up around lunchtime.  No lightning yet!

12m opens to VK, YB

12m is always a fascinating band.  It's been unusually dead, even for solar minimum, over the past few weeks.

But today, things changed.

VK6XI was coming through fairly weakly, and propagation was very patchy.  But we did manage a QSO during a very brief, stronger moment, though I had to push about 45W through the 3-ele to be heard, giving an ERP, ground reflections included, of several hundred Watts.

 

A bit later, YB0COU came in at varying, but sometimes very strong levels.  That QSO was a little easier to achieve.  As is often the case on 12m, and without anyone spotting him on the cluster, nobody was then coming back to YB0COU.

The last time I made a 12m VK QSO was as recent as March 12, and there were several in November and December 2020.  There is then a gap all the way back to March 18, 2020 for the next VK QSO.

Beaming VK and YB this morning.  Still pretty cool weather, if sunny.

A visit from our semi-resident Red-Legged Partridges

Without FT8, we would all still be stuck in the 1970s ideas, claiming 12m is dead, and won't be usable until near solar maximum.  But it's true that, today at least, you couldn't afford to blink or go to the toilet, because the signal would probably be gone!

More coastal work!

A fairly cool evening tonight, but good enough for a short spell of radio, which was needed after a lot of updating SD cards and installing the latest Raspberry Pi images yesterday.  Location not the best, but better than home.

Well, all went fairly smoothly with the new installs; only a need to select the correct audio CODEC inputs and outputs.

 

I managed a few QSOs on 14MHz FT4, nothing spectacular, but I wasn't really trying much this evening.  But I was glad to see my 4W FT4 was getting across to 9V land and, indeed, VK land, with fairly respectable signals (-13dB and -21dB, respectively):

15m, down at the lake.

A very sunny but, in exposed places, very cold day today.  Even the local swan community was fed-up of the wind and waves!  Son out skateboarding, so a couple of hours to kill with the radio at a local lake.  Earlier work showed freshwater situations yield good signal enhancements.

If you live in the northerly latitudes, you'll know that colour of sky and water means it's cold!

 

For sure, the LiFePO4 battery is a great asset to backpacking; I can walk pretty much any distance now with the full kit.  I managed over a kilometre quite comfortably the other day.  What I couldn't manage today was not getting a very wet foot, trying to install a radial tent peg!

Well, conditions were very poor after a G3 event overnight (still ~G1 at time of writing).  I wasn't getting out very far, but then again, neither was I at home, with ~35W and a vertical delta; in fact, I was getting out a lot worse from home, and the 20m band WSPR waterfall was almost empty:

Send/Receive spots on 15m, from home, ~35W, vertical delta loop.  Not very good today!

Black coating for a radio is not a good colour for portable - it can get very hot!  The case is a good shade.

 

Here's what I managed on transmit from the lake (~3W, 1/4 wave vertical):

And here's what I managed on receive:

It's a pity that JT65 and JT9 are now out of fashion, because the possibilities with those modes on QRP are much better than with FT8. 

6m opens - a little.

Having lain on its winter stand for a few weeks to take it out of the worst winds (in fact, we had very few of those this winter), the 6m 2-ele quad went back up yesterday.

Quad beam back up, now sporting stainless steel hardware for the booms.

 

I heard a few signals after teatime, but they were fairly weak and intermittent.  Same story this morning, although propagation was about steady enough to allow a few signals from Germany, France and Austria to be received.  

 

Story so far from 53.2 degrees north.

The band is not yet quite ready for this latitude, but that will change in coming days.

Happy Es (peak) season!

 

OH6BG Receives.

OH6BG provides very interesting WSPR data at 14MHz.  Overnight, my 0.2W signal to him was lost after 15:58UT, as the early stages of a G2 disturbance began.

As the field restored to quieter conditions near 02UT, my signal again made it to OH6BG for just over half an hour, briefly reaching quite good strength, and then vanished again.

Not uncommon, but always interesting.  Scale for the WSPR spots is adjusted so it approximately matches the scale of the magnetometry:

Strong PMSE

The summer Es and PMSE season is now getting underway.  This morning's radar plot from ~70 degrees north shows that we could be seeing some interesting propagation develop...

Moderately strong PMSE this morning. (Image: Leibniz Instute for Atmospheric Physics).

Curious WSPRs

It's often, perhaps even usually the case that when there is a reasonable geomagnetic disturbance, unusual openings occur on HF.

There was a disturbance in the past 24 hours, and this led to interesting spots by OH6BG, who appears to be a very recent entrant into the world of WSPR.  

The early, ~15UT drop-off of my signal to him was difficult to match with any field data.  The field was at that stage fairly quiet, and about three hours away from the onset of disturbed conditions.  In fact, the best match with any field changes seems to be with Alaska, although a minor change was also then happening at Jan Meyen and northern Greenland (see last trace 'jan' and 'sco' stations, respectively).  

The traces from Norway, Finland and Iceland do not appear to show any significant deviations that would explain the 15UT effect.

OH6BG hearing my 0.2W, 14MHz WSPR signal (vertical delta loop), 19-20 April 2021.  Long horizontal section is period of non-reception.

Magnetometry (Z component) for (in red, top trace, 'ded'), Deadhorse, Alaska. 

OH6BG was confirmed as listening throughout the period, and checking against M7WBY confirmed the same effect at ~15UT:

The return of reception of both my and M7WBY's signal at OH6BG around 00UT is when the field was undergoing a final, sharp burst of disturbances:

Greeland (East) magnetometer line, showing disturbances either side of 00UT, notably at 'hov' (Faroes), and 'lrv' (Iceland).

Do what you can, but do something!

(Belated) Happy World Amateur Radio Day!

I was very pleased to see, this weekend, a positive post over on Facebook by YL Marija (YU3AWA), who is well-known on various social media outlets for promoting a modern take on our hobby.  Marija was celebrating the day with a great collage of images, including plenty of youngsters.

Fishing for radio waves(!)

 

The likes of the RSGB could do well to take note.  No 'male, pale and stale' out in social media world.  Committees are irrelevant, as is the ownership of huge antennas, £5000 transceivers, and a nice 'baby boomer' pension to pay for it all.

It struck me that the individual can make a big difference to our image, out there, amongst the public.  As it warms up, I'm now out at some point on most days with my FT818.  

I attract a lot of curious passers-by, and without exception, they are pleasantly surprised to find (a) that amateur radio is still going, (b) that communication around the world is not only possible, but being shown to them in front of their very eyes and ears, (c) that a ham operator is willing to spend some time explaining it all to random strangers.  Oh, and (d), that a fully-fledged, internet-connected computer fits in their hand. 

Youngsters know nothing about amateur radio.  Older people will invariably have this image of us in their heads.  Do something positive to change it!

 

Of course, you have to overcome the inevitable and endless question, 'have you caught anything?' when working at the coast.  But a funny response is a good way to break the ice and begin your positive presentation of ham radio in practice (I've often thought of placing a collection tin for donations to charity if someone asks this question!) You have to abandon any notion of being stuffy, and embrace self-deprecation.  You also have to get over any reluctance to engage, which I admit is sometimes a challenge when your interface isn't triggering the rig or something!

We can do a lot more for our hobby by being out there, talking to and educating the public, rather than staying indoors, or complaining our national society isn't doing enough. So, why not give it a try?  As well as teaching others about your hobby, you will invariably learn something from others, whilst getting a good dose of sunshine and fresh air!

Menai Strait /P

 

Today's operating position, right hand shore of (seawater) Menai Strait. (C) Pixaerial/J. Rowlands.

Busy day on Saturday, as kids had to be taxied around the island, and my wife had her Covid vaccination at lunchtime.

No tourists!  Statue is of Admiral Lord Nelson.

 

 

To spend an hour or two before the vaccination, we went to the Anglesey shore of the Menai Strait, far away from the hordes of tourists now descending on us from England.

Hardly an ideal seaside location, it was certainly a tranquil one.  That said, using this time a full 1/4 wave antenna at 14MHz, WSPR showed that my 0.2W was reaching DP0POL, recently having crossed the equator and at 5230km distance, at a median +13dB stronger than other UK stations.  

In the case of NP3JD, my location yielded +9.5dB enhancement over the four or so other UK stations being heard by him.  All this was quite surprising from a site that doesn't have a very open aspect - and that in the case of NP3JD - was a path to the reverse of the sea in front of me!

The view to the south, towards DP0POL.

 

Path to NP3JD. 

 

A few QSOs with Europe on 6W PEP completed the brief visit.  I think I should start rapid deployment activity soon!

Short visit with a short antenna.

Little did I know that my decision to go down th beach with the shortened 20m vertical last evening was coinciding with a G2 storm!  Despite this, I was quite amazed by the performance of the tiny antenna.  It showed a perfect match at the beach, needing no 'tweaking', and using only one radial.  

Finally, it's warm!

 

For sure, it's a lot easier and much less obtrusive to use this antenna at the beach, even if it's somewhat less of a performer than a full-sized vertical.

I'm, 188cm tall, making the antenna pretty compact. 

 

I didn't have time to go chasing after some QSOs, mindful I had only a maximum 6W PEP under such conditions!  But I did capture some nice videos of the received signals.  The audio of the FT-818 out in the open is just outstanding, I have to say; great for attracting passers-by, wondering where the South African accent is coming from!  

The new LiFePO4 battery, which feels like an empty plastic box in the hand, worked great - no more heavy rucksack!

G2 storm!

Early stages of the distrubance.

 

Overnight, an unexpected geomagnetic disturbance brought activity up to G2 levels.  The magentogram of the event is quite spectacular:

There were no unusual spots during this period, but there was a strong impact on my signal received by TF4X (within the auroral oval), and, in the opposite direction, EA8BFK, which saw a remarkably strong spike to +13dB at 00:28UT.  Neither of these stations have appeared in recent times during quiet overnight conditions:

TF4X reception of my 1W WSPR at 14MHz (vertical delta loop) 16-17/4/21.

EA8BFK reception of my 1W WSPR at 14MHz (vertical delta loop) 16-17/4/21.

New RSGB Patron?

Interim RSGB Patron.

Ham radio has long been beset by a huge skew towards the much older age groups.  This extended to the RSGB's patron, HRH Prince Philip of Denmark and Greece.  He, of course, is being put to permanent rest this weekend.  Not that he ever seems to have done much for amateur radio, other than tokenistically visit some exhibitions and such royal nonsense.

Dead.

So, which of the royals will now take over, if anyone?  It's a pity the Duchess of Sussex (a.k.a. Meghan Markle) has abandoned her royal role; we could have done with the glitz, glamour, youth, gender and racial rebalancing of the 'male, pale and stale' RSGB that she could have brought.

Short 20m antenna.

In the drive to produce ever-smaller, ever-lighter but still effective antennas, I had a go at a fixed-value inductor placed above the centre of a shortened 20m vertical yesterday lunchtime.  The pole is a repaired piece of spare fibreglass, only 3m tall, with a short section of protruding wire to gain some modest length.

Seeing as a full 1/4 wave antenna for 20m is fairly easy and cheap to make, what's the real advantage of a shortened version?  I'd say (a) the fishing pole needed is much cheaper (about £12) than a 7m version (about £22) for the full 1/4 wave size, (b) less wind area, (c) much easier to temporarily fix to posts, etc., (d) less of a danger in public spaces, and less oppressive to those who are not familiar with radio.

At this, testing stage, I am using only one radial.  The antenna is also in a fairly cluttered antenna environment, and will need some 'tweaking' when taken to an open, beach environment.   

Fixed-value inductor of 2mm ID speaker wire.  That wire has been recycled so many times I've lost count!

I made the inductor empirically, drawing on past experience and some luck!  I needed 24 turns of close-wound speaker wire of 2mm conductor diameter (3mm with PVC sheath), wound on a 41mm outside diameter PVC pipe of length ~130mm (wire coil takes up less than this, of course) to achieve a perfect match in terms of both SWR and impedance, for the lower, digital modes end of 14MHz, as the SARK plot below shows:

It's moderately sharp tuning, as we would expect.  But it's wide enough to accommodate the whole CW and digimodes region, plus the lower SSB portion, too.

And now, the WSPR test!  Propagation was quite poor over the past 24 hours, but that affects all of us, so the comparison is still perfectly valid.  Again, I'm extremely frustrated by the propensity of so many operators not to publish any details about themselves or their antennas.  Here is a comparison with M0JFG across all spot distances, where he is using 10dB more power than I, but where my short antenna still produces a result only 5.5dB weaker (i.e., if I were using 2W, I could be expected to come out about 4.5dB better off):

Out beyond 5000km, which we can call 'DX', the outcome for my antenna is even better, now just 3.7dB down, or, power-for-power, I could be expected to be 6.3dB better off):

And the plots of stations reached, and the range:

A comparison with the very-well understood G0CCL station (vertical monopole against a large, metal sheet factory), and which is a top-performing UK station, also showed my short antenna was doing very well.  Using only the 0.2W transmissions from G0CCL (a Raspi randomly changes from 0.2 to 5W calibrated outputs), my antenna (median value) was just 2dB down.  I consider that a very good result, because G0CCL is such a good station.  Due to the changing outputs, I can't plot the results to show you; it had to be done in a spreadsheet.

14MHz WSPR

Far too busy with non-radio things these days, but some interesting results from 14MHz WSPR during the past days.

Quite unusually, my 1W was heard by ZL2005SWL on the northern part of the North Island, at 21:52 (-30dB) and 22:16UT (-26dB) on 13/04. The propagation route is indicated by Proppy HF's output as a very weak 'leakage' into daylight at ZL, perhaps along the long path.  But with ZL being essentially at the antipodean point for the UK, the short path is also a possibility - as is a combination of the two paths.

 

In other news, DP0POL, the RV Polarstern, is now well on her way back to Europe after a mission to Antarctica.  Nice to see the track plotted out in terms of WSPR spots, which occur during evening and morning greylines:

RV Polarstern WSPR receptions 13-14/04/2021.

I'll leave you with a view from a quick walk up a local mountain yesterday morning - Moel Siabod (872m).  F-15 aircraft were busy on low level work, too!

30m at the coast.

A very brief opportunity last evening, under continuing Artcic cold, to test the shortened 30m vertical at the coast.

A stiff wind from the Arctic proves the usefulness of a shortened antenna.  WSPR tests at 30m, looking away from the main coast.

The location is good for a quick set-up, not so good for paths other than to the north.  The idea was to firstly see if the design would still exhibit a good match as per my home experiments, and secondly to see how TF4X would hear me.

Well, it wouldn't match up beyond 2.3:1.  I eventually figured out why: the radials were pegged to the ground at the far end using aluminium tent fixings, without even a cord to isolate them from the pegs. 

Despite being on a beach where strong tide currents remove almost every bit of debris daily, I found some (non-conductive) short sticks, attached the radials to those (just ~6cm off the ground), and I instantly saw the required 1.3:1 match.  That's the beauty of portable working: you always learn something new!  You also always end up talking to passers-by (for far too long in cold weather!), who never really quite believe your singal is getting to the other side of the planet!

Slightly noisy, but shows the 1.3:1 match obtained on raising the radials and not using metal pegs!

First, here's how my vertical (red line, MW6PYS) did, compared to my slightly inland half sloper (blue line, MW1CFN).  Both stations used WSPRlite 'Classic' transmitters at 200mW:

These plots are always potentially misleading, as they use a log scale.  It's important to look at the signal strength reports, too.  For my chosen station of TF4X, directly to my north and making full use of the sea in front of the antenna, the difference was very good:

So we can say the antenna format works just fine, provided the radials are held off the ground with non-conductive fixings like a good length of cord to metal pegs, or directly to sticks.  The sea enhancement is also just as strong at 30m as it has proven to be at 20m.  Success all round!