An evening of 12m portable

Conditions on the upper HF bands have been very good recently.  So good, in fact, that I decided to throw together a 12m 1/4 vertical for coastal deployment.

I find the CSG Network site gives perfect results for wire lengths every time, but the matching is also assisted by downward-sloping radials from the elevated feedpoint.  SWR in the deployed state is 1:1.

Radio with the family doesn't really work out, but when all you want to do is sit and drift off into the horizon at the coast, then it's fine.  When I did take everything out, I forgot the coax in the process of transferring items from my RX bag to my transceiver box!

Take 2!

Last evening 12m was quite strong again, and the weather, though cloudy, very warm.  I took an hour to deploy everything on the north coast, only a couple of minutes by car from home.

24MHz activity at IO73tk last evening, looking NNE.

With a new Raspberry Pi 4B installed recently, I found I hadn't set up all the variables in the software, so that took up a couple of minutes.  But I soon settled down to some FT8, using 10-15W from the TS480SAT, powered by a small disabled person's scooter 12V gel battery that is good for maybe a couple of hours' work at typical FT8 transmission rates.

The 'go box', with in-built Raspberry Pi 4B.

Signals across the sea were, as expected, very strong and of the same kind of level I would expect using the 3-ele LFA from home (perhaps better, as I have high ground to the NE).  The open vista to Sweden and Finland was particularly good for the signals, and Russia out to 4000km was also very good, with SNRs in solid, positive territory.  I managed 11 QSOs altogether, just very casually operating.

And, so as not to break the tradition, a couple walking their dogs asked if I had caught anything.  Arrrgghh!  When they understood it was radio, they were concerned (jokingly) that "I might be talking to the Russians".  Very funny.  I replied that I am of Russian descent, and that if the couple wasn't careful, a Russian submarine would surface behind me.  They left, feeling a little bit embarrassed at having shown their all-too-typical British prejudice...

VE3KCL Balloon - amazing journey.

After a spell circling the North Pole last week, the latest VE3KCL balloon and 14MHz WSPR transmitter is now floating around the extreme northern part of China and extreme east of Mongolia.

Receivers of VE3KCL overnight.

I managed to receive four spots overnight, three of which were -30dB SNR from the tiny 10mW transmitter, and one reaching -27dB at 03:08UT.  Propagation predictions show this was a short path reception, whilst the UK was in the middle of the grey line period.

Quite a journey, and it's not over yet!

12m Goes West Coast USA

A nice late evening opening to the west coast US at 24MHz today - the first in quite a while from this QTH.

Early in the opening

I worked a few stations, which must have led to a cluster spot, prompting a number of other stations to appear on the PSKreporter map.  Sadly, they were rather too late to catch the fading propagation; even at peak signals, I was using an ERP of over 1kW to make the QSOs. 

A little later, localised Es enhancements gave extremely good signals in positive S/N territory to the midwest US, and -3dB to the west coast.

As is usually the case with 12m, point at the sun and make QSOs!  Evening at home.

Space clouds rise again!

After five weeks without clear skies, I was finally allowed a window to the mesosphere early this morning.

I later found out that a man also lurking amongst the vegetation and mine spoil heaps of Parys Mountain was in fact a neighbouring radio (VHF specialist) operator, GW8IZR, who had helped me put my tower up back in 2013.

Where will the balloon go?

The intrepid VE3KCL balloon is still in the polar region, caught in a broadly clockwise circulation.

At the moment, the balloon is east of Franz Josef Land:

It looks like, at roughly the altitude of the balloon, that the circulation will either see it escape towards western Russia later today, or else get caught in westerly flow again that should see it get even closer to the North Pole than it did yesterday.

Even if it does escape the the south today, it seems it is likely, a day or so later, to get caught in a northerly flow that might take it straight back to the pole again!

Time will tell.  Nice also to use this opportunity to check the performance of 14MHz reception, where I ended up at number 5 in the global rankings, but actually a joint 4th, just that WA2TP had no errlog:

Most northerly WSPR spot yet (updated)

Another VE3KCL balloon is floating around today, last heard from JR55 grid (see update), which is so far north, at slightly over 85 degrees, that it is a very narrow rectangle, not a square (as projected).

Update: A little later, the balloon was received here from IR07, which is only between 335km and 225km from the geographic pole -a comfortable beating of my previous record.  Assuming a height for the balloon of 30,000 feet (9.144km), the north pole itself is in fact visible from even the most southerly limit of IR07 (the horizon being 374km distant from this height).

Happy to be one of a small number hearing the balloon at 10-10:30UT.

I was curious to see how much more strongly the balloon would be received at the coast, so my son and I went off to the north coast of Anglesey and set up the trusty 1/4 wave vertical, just ahead of some heavy rain.

Listening 14MHz WSPR at IO73rj, looking north.

We managed two spots from the balloon, with large signal enhancements, relative to the delta loop at home.  First, here's the signal at the coast (I had no time to change the callsign or locator due to weather):

And, second, the delta loop (12:58UT here really is that time, not an hour incorrectly set; the 13:58UT spot heard at the coast was not detected at home, indicating a ~20dB enhancement if we take the limit of detection as -34dB), remembering that the delta is 2-3dB inherently better than the vertical:

So, the 14:08UT spot at the coast was ~16dB stronger on a like-for-like, vertical-by-vertical basis - a power factor of 40 times, with an indication of maybe a bit more available, had we more time to assess.

Here's the plot of VE3KCL at 14MHz being received at home (not the seaside) in IO73tj (vertical delta loop, SDRPlay RSP1a):

Hurry if you want planning consent!

If you are in Wales and are thinking of applying for planning consent for antennas (or anything else), you would appear to have just a few days or weeks to avoid a substantial increase in the fee.

This is from a letter to all local authorities issued by the Welsh Government this morning:

The other way of approaching planning as the moment is that these departments are so poorly resourced in both monetary and staff terms, that now is a good time to not apply for consent and qualify for lawfulness under 'the four year rule' if - and I stress the if - your local conditions mean that a complaint from the neighbourhood is already fairly low. 

Remember, though, that four years is a very long time to hope nobody sends you an enforcement notice.  But if you make it, your antennas become immune from enforcement.  It is not, of itself, unlawful to erect a structure without consent.  But, obviously, failing to comply with an enforcement notice as a result of doing so, is.

If, after that point, someone complains, you do not need to apply for a Certificate of Lawfulness, but you can if you want to; it has really very little merit, despite many Council's tendencies to claim you might have trouble selling your house without such a certificate. This is really just pique at being powerless to do anything.  If someone buying your house actually wants the antennas (unlikely), then it's much cheaper and less hassle just to buy an indemnity from your solicitor, costing about £50 as a one-off fee. 

The other piece of advice always worth keeping in mind is that, if you claim lawfulness by expiry of time limits or by being granted consent, then make sure you apply for the tower and antenna separately, not together.  That is advice from a former planning inspector, and ensures that, if you remove an antenna and change it for another one, you do not run the risk of someone saying you need entirely new consent for the new antenna placed on the same tower.  It's a subtle difference, but an important one.