Events in Ukraine

I have just got off the air after making several  contactsintoRussia and Ukraine on 10m PSK31. Ham radio transcends political boundaries and engenders friendships betweenpeople of all nations. All politicians could learn from it. My thoughts today are particularly with my radio friends living in Ukraine I hope that peace and normality are restored soon

до свидания!

Two 2xK3 contacts in PSK31

Conditoins remain excellent on the 10m band. I made several contacts and even had Stateside DX stations reply to my CQs. Two of my contacts were with Elecraft K3 users - don't often hear K3s on digital though they are the perfect rig for it.

When I'm not actively working stations I like to look at the PSK Reporter reception reports map.  It's more interesting than WSPR as the reports are of actual PSK31 signals. It's a pity there isn't a beacon mode because you have got to transmit or call CQ to see reports of your own signal. At least it is motivation to actually go on the air rather than just lurk!

Special events

HF propagation conditions have not been great today. There was not much happening on 15m at all.

I worked a couple of special event stations on 20m PSK31. DL100OUI was a special call to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first commercial radio communication between Germany and USA. The operator was Reinhard, DK1IO.

The other one was S503EO which was to commemorate 50 years in amateur radio by the operator Milos, S53EO!

That gives me an idea. My 60th birthday is in a few weeks time, perhaps Ofcom would let me have a special event call to mark that? :)

Fun on Fifteen

I have spent the entire day on 15m, mostly using PSK31. The band has been pretty lively all day. I worked a number of Russian stations including UB3YL Katya from Orel. That's her picture below. Pity about the corrugated iron roof shadow.

I made a couple of contacts into the Far East. One was with Yasuda JA1OTT, the other was with Chen BG9GYI.

Youkits TJ2B

Chen is a university student from Lanzhou. Chinese stations are becoming more common as more and more get on the bands. From the admittedly small sample I have managed to work Chinese hams form a different demographic from those from Europe or the USA. While your average EU or US ham is likely to be older than 60 (judging by those who tell me their age), Chinese hams seem to be mostly young people with an interest in technology.

It's good, too, to see Chinese firms entering the ham radio market with QRP products such as the kits from Youkits (take a look at the new TJ2B SSB handheld!)

World Amateur Radio Day

Today is the 88th Anniversary of the founding of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) which is World Amateur Radio Day. Didn't you know that? Well neither did I until I worked CR5IARU on 20m PSK31. Not that I'd have known from working the station. I had to use QRZ.com to find out what the special call was all about.

Perhaps it's just me but I thought the purpose of a special event call was to raise awareness of some particular event or anniversary. In pursuit of which the special event station should give out this information on every contact. But too often it seems to be taken as an opportunity to work as many stations as possible, contest style.

Another special call that I worked today on 20m PSK31 was HF2013TATO. When I asked the operator Jarek what the special call was for my request was ignored. So I had to go on the internet again. From what I could deduce, this special call is to raise awareness of the role of the father in the family. There may be more to it than that but my Polish is not very good. :) But I do know that "tato" means "dad."

Elusive DX on 15m

I checked the JT9 operating frequencies and downloaded a new version of the programmer but I was still seeing the same old calls so I switched to PSK31. 15m seemed quite lively. There were a few JA's, a couple of stations from China and one from South Korea. Later on I heard a sation in Indonesia. But could I work any of them? Could I heck.

I did manage to make a couple of far eastern contacts: Alexander RD9OA from near Novosibirsk, and Lee BG6CJR from Ningguo in China, but I failed to make any impression on the others. All I got was a couple of QRZs then they called CQ again. Together with the antics of some of the Russian operators - sending their calls over and over and over again so the DX had no chance of hearing anyone else call - it got a bit frustrating. I was running 40W but it didn't seem to be enough to reach stations I was getting solid copy on. If I didn't have to go stealth I think I'd be seriously considering a KPA500 at this point! It must be nice to flip a switch and blast over the top!

Some of the Russians seemed to be in a rush. One actually sent PSE SHRT K to me as if trying to have a friendly QSO would keep him from something more important. DX seems to bring out the worst in many operators. Sheesh, it's only a hobby.

TO7BC Mayotte

A good day today. Not much operating as I had to install a new PC monitor here in the shack and then a new Freetime Freesat receiver down in the living room. It's one of the new ones with WiFi support so I don't need to run a network cable down to the living room which all existing boxes have required.

After that I came up to the shack to see if I had installed any new QRM generators. Switched to 10m PSK31 and heard a single solitary station - TO7BC  from Mayotte!

I'm not a DXer but this signal on its own in the clear was too much to resist. It took about 15 minutes to break the pileup. I couldn't hear any other callers so I used XIT to dial in 0.5kHz up and hoped for the best. After a while with no success I decided to go up another 100Hz and he came right back! I must have been the only station who received a 579 report.

I shall check the website later to see if I got in the log. I will also have to find out where Mayotte Island is! I don't often get to work DXpedition stations so I'm quite pleased with this afternoon's work. I'll check for QRM generators another time.

Richer pickings on PSK

I only managed 4 QSOs in abour as many hours using JT9-1 this morning. I worked LU8EX whom I recognized having made a JT65A contact with him in the past. Hopefully more operators will make the switch from JT65A to JT9-1. At the moment it feels like I've worked everybody. I was spotted many times by VK3AMA even when I was running 5 watts. Pity there is no-one else in Oz using the mode yet.

I switched to PSK31 in the afternoon and my QSO rate immediately improved. A nice catch was Luc PR8EP whose QSL card I picture here.

Another good one was Eric HS0ZJK in Phetchaburi, Thailand. He is only the second Thai station I have worked, and both were on 15m.

ISS on 20m

No not that ISS! This is station II5ISS which I worked on 20m PSK31 whilst testing some tweaks to KComm.

If you're interested, you can win an award by working II5ISS on three or more bands before the end of 2013.

The prettiest ham and the longest call

Fifteen metres was again in good shape today. The contacts I made included the prettiest ham I've yet worked, and the station with the longest call I've ever logged.

Natali, RV3ADL

Call me a male chauvinist if you like, but whenever I work a YL (young lady) on the bands I can't resist looking to see if I can find a picture of her. I worked Natali from Moscow on PSK31 this afternoon and she must be the prettiest ham radio operator I've worked in my long career. She keeps a pretty neat shack, too.

The prize for the longest callsign ever logged goes to YO2013EYOWF which is the official call of the European Youth Olympic Winter Festival 2013 in Brasov, Romania. I pity anyone having to send that in CW! I don't have any pictures of the YO2013EYOWF operators but they do have a very pretty logo which I expect will be on their QSL.

Wide boys

What's the point of PSK125? I just finished a session running PSK31 on 15m (which was really lively, by the way) when I thought I'd just check 10m to see if anything was going on up there. I soon found that there wasn't much. The waterfall was devoid of traces, apart from a weak, wide, nebulous trace which proved to be PSK125.  PY2DN was calling CQ, but try as I might he couldn't decode me.

It appeared that he was making some QSOs, presumably with people enjoying better 10m propagation than I had. PY2DN's signal was far from perfect copy. Most times he transmitted I received mostly garbage. But I'm sure there was enough energy in the transmission to produce solid copy had he been using PSK31.

I guess the point of PSK125 is speed. PY2DN's CQ and my reply both lasted about two seconds. But what's the hurry? Not only can I not type that fast, I can't even click macro buttons that fast. So the time saved is for nothing. I accept there is a role for PSK63 in contests, when speed matters, but only when signals are strong enough to provide good copy. PSK125 is a step too far. It spreads the energy too thinly.

I've tried loads of new digital modes but I keep on coming back to good old PSK31. I find it more satisfying in the long run. There's tons of activity from heaps of different locations. You can often find a PSK31 signal when the CW and SSB band segments are dead. PSK31 is a real QSO mode where you can actually converse with somebody and exchange information with them. And you don't need to run a kilowatt to a huge tribander to be successful. I was calling CQ on 15m with 40w to my attic dipole and I felt like a big gun: I was getting replies, including DX replies, to every other call.

I think PSK31 has earned its place alongside CW and SSB as one of the staple modes of amateur radio. Other modes are just for temporary amusement.

A good session on 15m

There was not much life on 10m this morning but 15m was really hopping. I started off using PSK31 and my first QSO was with a Ukrainian YL named Olga! Her call was US5UFF and her QSL shows that she is (X)YL of UR4UHE. I think the UFF stands for Ukrainian Flora and Fauna which seems to be a popular award scheme over in Ukraine.

I was calling CQ and worked a whole string of east European and Russian stations. Calling CQ is a good way to fill the log but not a good way to work much DX as if any DX did reply it would likely be lost under the strong local stations calling.

As the hour approached lunch time I did some search and pouncing and managed to nab HS4ESF from Mahasarakham University in Thailand. I don't think it's the first time I have worked Thailand on PSK but it was nice nonetheless, and he has a nice QSL.

I've often noticed from my beacon monitoring that the time around midday to lunch time is a good time to work DX on the higher HF bands. I didn't work any other DX today but I was pleased to see on Propagation Reporter that my 40W of PSK31 to an attic dipole had been decoded near Sydney in Australia! Perhaps I'll work VK on PSK31 one day!

PSK31 spots of G4ILO on 15m

I tried JT65A briefly but the band segment was full of the same stations I could easily work using PSK31 so I thought I would try CW instead. I "shook hands" (as John N8ZYA puts it) with Z320K, a special call to commemorate 20 years of the Z3 prefix (Macedonia.)  I then had a real QSO with Bill, WA1HMW who is an ex-Royal Navy. That QSO taxed my receiving abilities a bit so I decided to call it a day.

Jamming on PSK

I was on 15m PSK31 and in the process of calling PY3ED when a vicious jamming signal started up.

Jamming on 21MHz

As you can see, it did a good job of obliterating all signals. It seemed to be centered around 21.070MHz and extended for 50kHz or so in either direction.

I don't know how long it stayed on for because it was lunch time so I went to have something to eat. When I came back the interfering signal had gone.

Was it something local to me or has anyone else seen it?

Winter blues

I like Christmas, but with that sole exception I hate this time of year. The short days, when it's dark at breakfast time, dark at tea time, and in between the sun struggles to reach an elevation where it can be seen over the tops of neighbouring houses.

It's not just the daylight the sun fails to make much impact on. There's next to no propagation on any of the higher HF bands. I believe that LF band enthusiasts have their best time at this time of year. But I have never been lucky enough to have an antenna for the LF bands. My attic multiband dipole will work on 80 metres but it is shortened so much that the usable bandwidth is barely 60kHz. It is really only usable on the QRP CW frequency and the PSK31 operating frequencies.

Yesterday I thought I would try some digital work on the 30m band. I couldn't hear any PSK31 at first but I did hear some JT65 so I thought I would try that. I made three QSOs including one with N4ABN which I thought was quite good nfor mid-morning. The trouble with JT65 is that I find it difficult to maintain concentration. It's 50 seconds before anything is decoded, and during that time my mind has drifted off and I have missed the moment when I should have responded.

Just as an aside, I noticed a quirk with the JT65-HF software. I don't use CAT control of my K3 (never could get it to work) so I have to set the frequency of the radio and the software manually. But whenever I did this, after a few seconds the frequency would reset itself to 0. I happened to notice that the frequency was being displayed with a comma as the decimal separator. I had left the PC configured like that after testing the fix for the problem with KComm. On a hunch, I reset the separator to a dot (period) and lo and behold the frequency stayed as I set it. I'm surprised that no-one seems to have spotted this but at least we know now how to fix it.

After making a bit of a meal of three JT65 QSOs I decided to switch to PSK31. Although it is not such a good mode for DX, if proof were needed, there were 3 or 4 spots of me on JT65A in the USA but my PSK31 at slightly higher power never penetrated beyond Western Europe.

I do find PSK31 a more rewarding mode to operate, though, because you do usually find out something about the other operator or his station. Having said that, has anyone noticed a trend towards shorter QSOs in PSK31? Quite often now it's name, report, qth, locator and goodbye. Whilst I can't say I miss knowing the make and model of the operator's computer and the colour of the interface cable, I do like to know what power they are running and what antenna they are using.

10m 23 November 2012

10m WSPR spots @ G4ILO 23 November 2012

Propagation on 10m was not as good as yesterday. WSPR traces were fainter as signals were weaker. On the air conditions were not stable and deep QSB affected most QSOs. An hour in the afternoon resulted in these contacts:

2012/11/23	14:29	28.121	BPSK31	KC2VOU	599		539		Jon	Earlville, NY
2012/11/23	14:41	28.122	BPSK31	K2PSD	599		599		Ron	Randolph, New...
2012/11/23	14:49	28.122	BPSK31	KF2GQ	599		599		Robert	Jupiter FL
2012/11/23	14:58	28.122	BPSK31	WA4FLZ	599		589		Shep	Miami FL
2012/11/23	15:21	28.121	BPSK31	N0BIV	599		599		Don	Jefferson Cit...

---

Gotaways were: CN2OS (Morocco) and HK2LS (Colombia).

10m 22 November 2012

10m WSPR spots @ G4ILO 22 November 2012

Really excellent propagation this afternoon to the eastern USA as the WSPR spots show. An hour's break before afternoon tea resulted in QSOs with 7 new stations.  I actually had people calling me after I signed with another station. I like the callsign of the first station...

2012/11/22	14:41	28.123	BPSK31	W2PSK	599		599		Andy	South River, ...
2012/11/22	14:53	28.121	BPSK31	KB8ZUN	599		599		Jeffrey	North Ridgevi...
2012/11/22	14:57	28.122	BPSK31	KD4JMV	599		599		Harry	Naples FL
2012/11/22	15:07	28.123	BPSK31	W3SW	599		599		Andy	Binghamton NY
2012/11/22	15:20	28.120	BPSK31	KA3UJE	599		599		Terry	Lykens, PA
2012/11/22	15:26	28.120	BPSK31	WA2VMO	599		579		Bob	Staten Is. NY
2012/11/22	15:36	28.121	BPSK31	KB3CUP	599		599		Elza	Greensboro, PA

10m 13 November 2012

10m WSPR spots @ G4ILO 13 November 2012

Some pretty good propagation on 10m today, though not exceptional. During the morning it was interesting to note several spots of G and GW stations. I was received by fellow blogger Tim G4VXE. I didn't hear him though.

I took time out to make a few digital contacts. I worked two Russians on 12m (using the 10m dipole) then a few more plus a couple of Americans on 10m. Best contact was NP3IR Hector in Puerto Rico, who has just this minute spotted me on WSPR too!

2012/11/13	11:46	24.921	BPSK31	RV9MA	599		599		Vlad	Omsk
2012/11/13	12:10	24.922	BPSK31	RN1TV	599		599		Sergey	Staraya-Russa
2012/11/13	12:24	28.122	BPSK31	RZ1OK	599		599		Yuri	Onega
2012/11/13	12:40	28.120	BPSK31	NP3IR	599		599		Hector	Aibonito
2012/11/13	14:34	28.122	BPSK31	RZ6AVM	439		599		Ewgeniy	Krasnodar
2012/11/13	14:38	28.122	BPSK31	RA3TAC	599		599		Vlad	Nizhny
2012/11/13	14:45	28.122	BPSK31	W4ECZ	559		579		Wayne	nr Tampa
2012/11/13	14:51	28.122	BPSK31	UY7QL	599		599		Oleg	Pologni nr Zo...
2012/11/13	14:57	28.122	BPSK31	RW9SQ	599		599		Victor	Orenburg
2012/11/13	15:05	28.122	BPSK31	KC4FNE	599		599		Bob	Blacksburg, V...

That's cool! I can mark and copy lines from my contact log, then paste them into Blogger and they come out formatted. Never knew you could do that.

10m 11 November 2012

10m WSPR spots @ G4ILO 11 November 2012

Ten metres seems to have perked up a bit today, though conditions don't seem as good as they were a week or so ago.

During the afternoon on PSK31 I heard, but didn't work, Mexico and Panama. No WSPR monitors there so they don't show up on the map.

Calling CQ resulted in contacts with some East coast USA stations. Propagation to Europe can't have been that good. I think this is the first time that I didn't get called by European and Russian stations.

I heard several USA stations working in a 10-10 contest. I don't have a 10-10 number so I didn't try to contact them. As a fan of 10m I like the idea of 10-10 but to be a member you have got to be sponsored by several existing members and then pay a membership fee. That's way too much hassle and expense just to get a number to send people. The European PSK Club has the right idea. Membership is free to anyone and communication with members is via a web site.

10m 8 Nov 2012

10m WSPR spots @ G4ILO 7 November 2012

 Another fairly quiet day on 10m. I took time out from WSPR during the early afternoon to do some PSK31 operating. There was some good DX about. First I worked Ian 3B8IK in Mauritius. I heard 5H3NP in Tanzania, but he didn't appear to be CQing. I found a clear spot and called CQ myself hoping to be heard by the African station but every time a station from the Eastern USA called me! It was better than when the band was wide open as there was less QRM making it easier to hear stations.

I like working stateside because ops seem more willing to have a proper QSO instead of just exchanging reports and details. I don't think that says anything about the relative friendliness of Americans and Europeans, it's just down to the fact that Yanks and us both speak the same language whereas for the European stations that are all I can usually work English is not their native language.

PSK Reporter map showing stations heard/worked by G4ILO on 8 November 2012

10m wide open!

Ten metres has been wide open today. Stations have been heard or worked in just about all directions. I ran 2 watts of WSPR during the periods that I wasn't in the shack and the program screen resembled 30m!

WSPR spots on 10m at G4ILO, 26/9/2012

After a short period of WSPR I switched to voice mode and made a nice SSB contact with Ken, JA2FJP near Nagoya (nothing to do with cheap Chinese antennas!) After a rubber-stamp contact with R100BG I found phone a bit hard going with all the QRM and pileups so I retreated to the more restful pastime of working digimodes.

Digital stations hrd/wkd at G4ILO, 26/9/2012

I made one more Japanese contact - with JI4POR - and made my first-ever China contact - with BG8GAM - all on PSK31. I heard several more stations from those countries and also one from Korea (South, presumably) and one from Indonesia but didn't manage to work them. Better luck next time!

A session of calling CQ produced an endless succession of Russian stations. Where do they all come from? There is no chance of working interesting DX unless you search and pounce on the DX stations. Even when calling a specific DX station I was being called by Russian stations! Why do they do it? I lost the chance of a couple of first contacts because of it.

As the afternoon wore on many stations from North America and Canada started to be in evidence. My final PSK31 contact for the day was with Bob KZ0G in Missouri which is probably a first for that state for me.

Not a bad haul for a few hours listening / operating using a maximum of 40 watts PSK31 to an attic dipole. I wish there were more days like that!