Category Archives: Propagation

WSPR on 80m

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Last night I leave WSPR on for the whole night to see what happen. According to propagation rules, the best opportunities on 80m should be around the greyline. In the evening that means in western Europe I should get signals out of the east and in the morning I should get signals out of the west. A little disappointed I was this morning when the only thing I saw is stations from Europe. Could it be my antenna? Bad propagation on 80m? Not enough WSPR-station on the air? I guess my S9 noise level on 80m don’t help much.

WSPR 2.0 up and running

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After reading about WSPR 2.0 getting out, it did grab my attention. I still like the whole WSPR idea so I looked around in the shack to give it a try. The idea was to set-up my blown-final FT-817 and connect it to my Antron 99 vertical for 10m. It wouldn’t be possible to tx with the Yaesu, but at least the WSPRnet would have another listen station on 10m. I already picked up a nice signal from Asia one time, but on average it is really quiet on 10m.

I think I leave the setup running for a few weeks. See what happen when the propagation will be better on 10.

My mind is spinning off, wouldn’t it be nice to have more ‘beacon’-like WSPR kit? Something very small, no interface required, just a little box with an antenna and UTP connection. Dedicated to WSPR 24/7 and just sitting in the corner of the shack. Hmmm, interesting idea. Let me know if someones already come up with this idea!

CQ WW SSB

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Two weeks ago I switched on the transceiver on saturday and listen around on the bands. I couldn’t believe my ears! There where incredible conditions. 40, 20 15 and 10 where completely open! It wasn’t hard to hear there was a big contest going on. I wasn’t into the contesting lately so I had to pull out the contest calender to check which one was on. It turn out to be the CQ WW SSB contest. After I read the contest rules I started to make some contacts. I was even able to make a qso with South Africa on 10 meters! Finally I’ve got a change to test out my Antron 99 which I installed for 10 meters. It worked very nicely!
At the end of the weekend I’ve made 77 contacts in the contest. Not extremely much, but okay for me. Especially if you bare in mind that I was totally unprepared.
If these conditions are a sign of what is possible in a high sunspot cyclus, I’m gonna have a very nice 6 years to come!

I seem to be unable to convert my HRD-ADIF-log into the needed Cabrillo-format for the contestmanager. I send him the file anyway. A few days later I received an email that my log was processed! Now that’s what I call service… Thanks Bob, K3EST.

Great conditions!

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A few weeks ago when I was visiting France (JN24XM) the conditions where very poor. The only excitement was a few sporadic e’s on 10m.

Last night I was sitting around in the shack. Conditions where pretty good all day. But later that evening they were really picking up. Without much trouble I’ve worked 2 South America stations: NP3XF (Puerto Rico) and YV5OHM (Venezuela).
The cluster keeps coming up with all great spots. It was a really nice to enjoy it.

Just a few minutes after twelve I was able to pull myself out of the shack and into bed. With a big smile on my face!

First 10 meter contact!

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This week I visiting my parents in Hautes Alpes, France (JN24XM) again. Last sunday evening we arrived and the next morning I did check the wire antenna’s on the roof. They were all broken due to heavy snow slidings.
After fixing the open dipole for 20 and the long wire for the other bands on the roof, I put up my famous full wave 40 meter horizontal loop behind the house.
All antenna’s are up and running again and work great.

This morning I did see some 10 meter spots on the cluster so I tuned 10 meter on my long wire. After listening for a few minutes there was a great clear and crisp signal from Henk, PA0RKS. He was CQing. I gave him a call back and as a total surprise Henk did hear me! My first QSO on the 10 meter band had happened! It must have been some sporadic E-reflection. Thanks Henk!

Full wave horizontal loop 40mFull wave horizontal loop 40m 2

No sunspots!

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The Sun is now in the quietest phase of its 11-year activity cycle, the solar minimum – in fact, it has been unusually quiet this year – with over 200 days so far with no observed sunspots. The solar wind has also dropped to its lowest levels in 50 years. Scientists are unsure of the significance of this unusual calm, but are continually monitoring our closest star with with an array of telescopes and satellites. Seen below are some recent images of the Sun in more active times.

See all pictures at Boston.com