Beach Portable

It's been remarkably warm this winter so far.  December was typically 6 degrees C warmer than the usual temperature, making outdoor operations much more attractive.

So, with a loose Sunday afternoon on offer, I took off to one of the north coast of Anglesey's beaches, where easy car access close to the sea is possible, and the kids could feed the ducks on a nearby lake.

Perfect...

 

Armed with nothing more than an SO239 chassis mount and three wires cut for 15m, arranged as an elevated quarter wave, I set the whole thing up on a 7m fishing pole, and connected to my trusty TS480SAT.

Running just 20W maximum output on SSB, I was surprised to immediately break into a big pile-up working a Canadian station - although the reason for the pile-up wasn't immediately apparent.  I worked a couple of US stations, all with good signal reports, and even one on short skip to Belgium.

Those contacts were enough to remind me - and all those machoistic folk around - that beach working with a simple quarter wave is extremely powerful and very satisfying.  It's just a pity that there is a large cadre of folk out there who don't realise or accept this.

My initial rough estimate lengths for the vertical were a few inches too long.  It took me about a minute to trim on site, achieving a 1:1 match with ease.  It's not every antenna you can say that about!

What I didnt achieve was raising any interest amongst the public.  A curious little boy was whisked away with nervous apology by his overprotective mother, after I asked them both if they'd like to hear someone in America.  "Oh, it's a radio", said she, quickly diving into the comfort and safety of a car.  The UK is a sad, sad place, now...

 

A Great New Year's Morning!

After much media hype about a 'mega solar storm' hitting Earth about New Year's Eve, the much more moderate G1-2 storm began around midday on NYE.

With the recent heavy winds having broken an old 75Ohm stub on my 2-ele quad for 50MHz, I was anxious not to be be left out of any auroral working.  So, with new coax still not arrived in the post-Christmas mail, I recycled the old stub, accepting a very small reduction in length (which turned out to have almost no effect on SWR.)

Torshavn calling - on 6m Es at New Year.

I turned the beam to the north as a faint green glow appeared on the northern horizon around 7pm.  Later, I was surprised to hear a number of Scandinavian beacons coming through quite strongly.  Some aurora-warbled CW was also coming through, again from up north.

As we progressed through midnight and into 2016, I was amazed to hear - and make contact with - OY1OF coming through at 55-7 on SSB, along a stable Es path, absent of any auroral effects.  An LA9 station was about the same strength, but with much more fading.

So, a very nice late evening and early morning that allowed me to say HNY! to the Faroes, and highlighted the remarkable number of effects that make 6m such a fascinating band to work.

WSPR

WSPR is a ground-breaking mode that, for the first time in amateur radio, allows objective assessments of signal paths and antenna performance, free of human bias.

As I have written previously, WSPR arrived on the scene only recently, and as such, has adopted 'standard' frequencies towards the lower, digital end of the bands, without any coordination or assigning of protection such as is required by continusously-operating beacon-type modes.

Whilst most operators are aware of beacon modes, many are not.  A large number tune, hear a faint pure tone, assume it's just noise or something of no interest to them, and start operating some other mode, most commonly, RTTY.  Because RTTY uses LSB, the emissions frequently appear within the beacon segments.

Of course, for the most part, there is no 'correct' or 'legal' allocation to any particular mode, unless it's specificially included in the licence terms.  However, there is a wide, catch-all clause (section 7(3)) in the UK's Wireless and Telegraphy Act that prohibits interference, and in this legal context, 'interference' means just that - to interfere with other transmissions, whether on the amateur bands or otherwise.   

During a recent incident where SSB was destroying WSPR modes on 5MHz, I politely contacted one of the operators, simply to advise he had stamped on on-going transmissions by WSPR stations. 

The response wasn't favourable!

Whilst the person involved was of fairly advanced years, his aggressive defence, largely borne of feeling silly, I think, broke down into three basic parts:

(1) Ignorance of WSPR, and that he couldn't hear anything on the frequency.
(2) There was no breach of the licence or NoV terms, because the bandplan is voluntary.
(3) There was no other frequency available to use.

Let's take them in reverse order:

It is possible that (3) is true, but I did in fact listen across the band, and with S9+40 signals from the southern England station in question, it seems much more likely that other frequencies were, in fact, clear at the time.

(2) looks appealing, but without recourse to close legal argument, it's clear that simple protocol and the ability to use the ham frequencies effectively means that one operator should not 'stamp' (interfere) with an ongoing transmission.  WSPR operates continuously, and so commencing a transmission when one or several are already underway would appear to be, or could certainly be argued to be, a breach of s7(3).

(1) Is simply a non-starter.  Ignorance of a mode is perhaps understandable.  But amateurs are granted licences on the basis, like all citizens, that they keep themselves abreast of new laws and regulations, and that they do not breach them by causing interference.  So, ignorance of WSPR is no real defence.

If, as appeared to be the case after a couple of bun-type exchanges on e-mail, the operator still won't accept any error, then a question must be asked.  Is he saying that I can just jump on a frequency, claim ignorance of SSB because I'm a CW or digimodes-only operator, and then start transmitting away over an ongoing QSO, without any legitimate cause for complaint from anyone?  That, in fact, is precisely what he was trying to argue, ladled heavily with a value judgement on modes other than his own as being undetectable and of less worth.

It is true that WSPR, to the uninitiated, can be somewhat difficult, at times, to detect by ear alone.  But mostly, WSPR signals are strong, and readily detected as some form of digital transmission.  It is a new, but not that new a mode.  It is clearly allocated to a narrow segment of the 60m band, as part of the beacon modes, although it is not legally a beacon mode in itself.  That issue itself needs attention, because it's obvious that many, if not most operators transmit WSPR signals whilst unattended, and do so 24/7/365.

WSPR is a mode, because of its immense and universal utility, that needs a special allocation where it may not be interefered with by those who can't be bothered to listen, watch, or pay due respect to a crucially-important digital mode.  I have argued this case to the RSGB and IARU, to no real avial thus far...

Yagi, Yagi, Yagi...

And for those who know Max Boyce from the days of old, the response might be "Terrain!  Terrain!  Terrain!"

Many moons ago, I wrote about a comparison I ran alongside an operator in south Wales - about 125 miles away from me.  He's near the sea, runs a 4-element SteppIR, and runs about 400W.

So, it was a bit of a surprise - not accepted by some - that my simple delta loop was being heard at the same signal strength by the same operator, at the same time, on the US east coast, as the south Wales station.

To me, this is easily explained.  It's the terrain, stupid!

Living on a ridge, with ground that slopes initially steeply, then gently to the coast, is of enormous benefit in terms of ground gain.  According to the ARRL HF Terrain Assessment model, my 3-ele Yagi gets a ~7dBi boost from ground reflections, even with the antenna being set at no more than 6m high.  What's more, that total peak gain of over 14dBi occurs at just 2.5 degrees above the horizon.  By lowering the antenna to about 4 metres above ground (remembering we live on an elevated plot), the peak gain comes down to just 1 degree at 14dBi.  That is very tough to achieve from most sites.

True, DX doesn't always come in at such incredibly low angles.  But more often that not, access to very low angles is of benefit, not hindrance.

Now, I saw the same thing happen again this week.  A west Wales operator this time, operating a 3-ele SteppIR (the make of the antenna is irrelevant, of course).  I don't know the power in use, but that's OK, as I didn't have a chance to make contact with the US station, so it's a listening test only.

The result?  The station was a 5/5 to me on a delta loop with base at 1.8m, and 5/5 to the other operator on a Yagi up at about 10m.  No difference!

If we now look at the terrain, we see some profound differences.  The west Wales operator (red) is much nearer the sea than I am (blue) in the same beam direction for the USA.  But the terrain for me slopes away continuously, if not smoothly, whereas the other operator has land that rises significantly. That said, the mast puts the west Wales Yagi pretty much above most of the surroundings, if only just so.

OK.  You are probably not convinced just yet.  That's understandable.  So, let's look at how the ARRL HFTA software models the gain for both stations.  This time, I'm comparing identical Yagis, except mine is only 6m up on the tower, whereas the west Wales Yagi is set at 10m.

Are you starting to warm to the argument now?  My gain (blue) is +14.3dBi at 2.5 degrees, whereas the SteppIR in west Wales (red) is way, way down at minus 2.5dBi at the same elevation.  Rather self-evidently, the other station stays well down on gain until we reach parity at 11 degrees, beyond which the west Wales Yagi then has a marginal advantage for a while.

So, whilst I again stress and accept that not all DX comes in low, a lot of it does.  So, a lot of the explanation for the ability of my simple wire antennas to match the gain of big, expensive antennas atop big, expensive towers, is likely to be in the advantage of my terrain.

True, I haven't compared the delta loop against a Yagi, which was my original position.  That's because HFTA can only handle horizontal antennas; my delta is vertically polarised.  However, whilst ground gain is likely different, the delta is able to access very low angles, due to the sloping ground in front of it in most directions.

Antenna modelling with MMANA-GAL suggests that my vertical delta has anything between 4.4 and 7dBi gain, and real RF measurements confirm the radiation is at or only slightly above the horizontal, i.e. 0 degrees.

So, if we take the worst-case gain for the delta, at 4.4dBi, that still puts it at least 5-6 dBi ahead of the 3-ele Yagi at 10m in west Wales until at least 5 degrees elevation - and that's without any ground gain included for the delta!

In short, if you want the best location for DX, don't take my word on what to look for.  Take that of the great Les Moxon, who, according to an acquaintance of his, would only choose a hillside location for a new home - explaining his vivid accounts of milliwatt SSB QSOs between himself and VK land!

WSPR: Broken?

WSPR is a mode that has taken over the world of beacon-type transmissions, and taken the subjectivity out of antenna and propagation assessments.

Sadly, whilst WSPR must have a huge number of people hitting its servers 24/365, the WSPR net web site has slowly become quite degraded in its performance.  It's now quite common not to be able to get updated maps and database query results back for long periods during any given operating period.  This undermines the whole point of the mode.

It may be that WSPR net needs to start charging users in order to provide better server bandwidth.  If something isn't done to prevent the rot getting worse, this could well see WSPR fade away over time, at least in its present form.  As a concept and practice, it's too powerful and useful across the globe to vanish, so let's hope some improvements come about, one way or another.

CW Contest - More Crap Operating

There are clearly those in the radio community - and this includes some societies - who think that a contest gives them the right to operate with only their interests in mind.

This weekend, some CW contest or other is underway.  WSPR is once again being completely ignored, with the globally-important beacon mode, which takes up a very narrow spot frequency, being obliterated.

Ham radio's standards are really very poor.  I find it difficult to reconcile someone in the US being fined $25,000 for failing to identify, when there are, this weekend, hundreds of stations breaking the terms of their licence by interfering with ongoing transmissions.

I like ham radio, but once again, find myself questioning whether contests have taken over the hobby - and have undermined gentlemanly operating.

Mode Breakdown

No, not that sort of breakdown.  It's a simple chart of which modes I've used since about 2010.

The fraction of PSK31 surprised me, because I've not used it regularly for a couple of years.  It reflects a busy period during sunspot maximum, typically on 15 and 10m.  JT65A is taking over as the default mode for me, mainly because it offers a way to communicate wihthout shouting down a microphone when others are asleep.  It's also useful because you can do other things at the same time.  JT9 is also slowly increasing, especially after e-QSL introduced its award for that mode.

It's a shame that ROS and OLIVIA have so few takers.  These are really very robust weak signal modes that allow comfortable live typing QSOs, often with very interesting people.  RTTY remains an annoying 'last resort' mode for me, although it can also be very useful under marginal conditions.  I just wish more RTTY operators would avoid selecting a frequency that interferes with WSPR mode.

Sadly, CW remains a 'to do' mode, having never really made the effort to learn it.  The attraction of simple, QRP operating whilst portable might well change that state of affairs soon!