There were two moderate periods of geomagnetic disturbance overnight, with a quieter period in between (~01:30UT - 05:30UT), as depicted in the plot below, along the Greenland (east) line:
The intervening quiet period gave rise to interesting propagation to the south of my location, which has been noted previously under similar conditions:
First, the propagation to DP0GVN-1 at 14MHz, using 1W WSPR from a vertical delta loop:
And then, on the same time axis span, the propagation to EA8BFK:
There would thus seem to be some precipitated electrons in transport between the north and south polar regions, giving rise to this propagation, which reached quite strong levels during the peak.
High above 69 degrees North, PMWE, the winter apparitions of PMSE, have appeared very strongly again.
Anyone interested in high latitude-crossing DX paths on higher HF and lower VHF may see some interesting results, although the ability of PMSE/PMWE to sustain propagation is not proven.
With that caveat in place, it is nevertheless interesting to note extremely good propagation at 12m over the past couple of days, extending, according to time of day, to coverage of most parts of the globe.
About 40 minutes before sunrise here today, two-way 24MHz FT8 signals from as far as India were at good levels, with the first signals already present at about 07:15UT.
I was out well before sunrise at the east-facing beach this morning, during a flat-calm, clearing sky.
This mission was to test out a single turn magnetic loop of 10mm microbore copper, which was recycled from a successful 'figure-of-eight' project a couple of years ago.
The loop is only 2.5m in circumference, or a little under 800mm in diameter. It's fed with a 'pseudo gamma match', via a 4:1 balun.
Mounting things securely in the field is one of the biggest headaches with this antenna type. I found a timber stand blew down without guy ropes. Ropes are not ideal in the field, as they take time, space and represent a trip hazard for other beach-goers.
So, last night, I drilled two holes in the L-section steel I have, which was made initially for a 10m fishing pole. With bolts and a couple of wing nuts, the permanently-fixed loop, capacitor and balun just slip onto the steel really quickly. Tuning with my homebrew remote system proved very quick, stable and gave a perfect match for 14MHz:
L-section steel driven into the ground makes a sturdy support.
Now, when it comes to analysing the 14MHz WSPR results, this antenna is tough going! Why? Because it is both directional and has a relatively narrow beam, notably with vertical radiation (i.e. to the left and right of the loop above). So simply looking up every station isn't going to work - especially when, as in late November, the path from places like VK and ZL is variably long and/or short path, which serves to complexify things a lot!
Here's a pretty rubbish video I made with the current meter showing how the radiation changes quite quickly with position. Note also that, perhaps surprisingly at the beach, that the near-field radiation pattern is not especially low. Singal is peak when the needle is at the bottom of the meter in this video:
And for completeness, here's the radiation perpendicular to the plane of the loop, which is purely horizontally polarised:
Overall, I wasn't able to find non-long path DX stations that were within the reasonable line of fire of the vertical beam. That said, I did find that this tiny HF antenna at the beach reached ZL1ROT at -22dB, exactly matching the signal achieved by my vertical delta loop back home (which has a much better aspect to the antipodean point, mid-Atlantic, which is not a favoured direction for today's beach location).
RZ3DVP was reasonably close to the peak beam in the vertical plane. The magloop was 3.5dB weaker than the vertical delta loop at home, despite having the sea to help it. The exact-same difference was seen with OH3FR, and pretty much the same (-4dB) for RX-only JMBNSWED in Sweden.
I'm now starting to wonder whether the loop might actually work better if it is closer to the ground, than about 1.5m above it?
In fact, my inveterate antipodean eccentric counterpart, VK3YE, got to this question a long time ago, and seems to answer it quite conclusively, albeit by moving the damned loop far too quickly for us to get a good grip on what's happening. In his video, it seems the received signal is better at around waist height than over his head or much closer to the ground, although it's a question as to whether he is receiving with vertical or horizontal radiation when he holds the loop vertically - both radiation types are in effect in that orientation.
Inevitably, I will have to test this out again, perhaps from my west-facing coast, where the long path is clear and assisted by the sea.
Not much time between the appearance of new sunspots all of a sudden. A huge spot, showing a marked Wilson effect, has just come into view in the past day or so.
Very disturbed geomagnetic conditions overnight. This brought beautiful enhancements on 14MHz WSPR.
TF4X,inside the auroral oval, received my 1W with a big spike at around 01:30UT, as a field disturbance pulse got underway. As that pulse died, another began about an hour later, bringing another pre-dawn peak:
TF4X reception of MW1CFN 1W WSPR 22-23/11/2020
The 01:30UT peak was also clearly seen in OE9GHV's reception of my signal (note different time scale to previous plot), but not the later disturbance:
Very strong high latitude polar mesospheric winter echoes have broken out in the past 24 hours. I wasn't active on the bands today, so I wonder if there was any 6m or higher HF enhancement?
The second plot shows the situation 24 hours later, with an intensification in echoes.
PMWE echoes at 53.5MHz/ MAARSY/IAP Leinbiz Institute for Atmospheric Research.
