Sporadic on Six

Today there has been a really big Sporadic-E opening on 6m which lasted for several hours. In fact it is still going on as I type this.

This snapshot of activity from DXMaps gives an idea of what the opening was like at its peak. The whole of western Europe must have been covered by a reflective Sporadic-E cloud!

From DXMaps I could see that the opening extended up to 2m for a time, though I didn't hear anything myself. Unfortunately my QTH is poor for VHF so conditions have to be exceptionally good for me to hear any 2m DX let alone work it. So 6 remains my favourite VHF band.

I made several 6m contacts on SSB and several on PSK31. The most interesting call was LY44WFF, a DXpedition to Klaipeda, Lithuania KO05oi which is quite a rare square so I'm told. Best DX on PSK31 was probably David, 5B4AHY.

I never quite know how to answer calls on 6m PSK31. Some operators seem to use quick, contest style operating while others reel out their name, QTH, EPC number and so on. I prefer the quick format myself, with the aim of getting the contact completed before the conditions fade out. But if someone wants to exchange a bit more information I try to do that too.

A station operating RTTY was an unwelcome presence among the PSK just above 50.250. One RTTY station came up right smack on top of someone operating PSK63. Surprisingly I got perfect copy of the PSK63 station which was straddled by the RTTY signal! Surely it is time to abandon this old, wide, slow outmoded mode?

6m 18 May 2013

This Saturday morning there was a big Sporadic-E opening on 6m. There were some pretty big signals, though once again I seemed to be on the edge of the opening. The Sporadic-E seemed centered over northern Europe and you can see from the map that it was pretty intense!.

6m on 18 May 2013 at 0930z. Map from DXMaps.com

I had KComm's DX Cluster window open. I don't use the cluster on HF and dislike it intensely, but spotting stations on the cluster (in a specific format with locators for both endpoints) is how VHF contact information gets to DXMaps.com.

I saw a couple of contacts from Ireland spotted on 2m so I switched bands.

2m on 18 May 2013 at 0940z. Map from DXMaps.com

As you can see, two lucky EI stations managed to work into northern Italy, one of them using a vertical antenna! Signals must have been strong but when I QSYed to 2m I didn't hear anything. The Es must have been over the northern French coast and you can see that the same Es cloud must have permitted F6HTJ to spot the GB3ANG beacon and enabled DG7IG to work EA1CCM as the paths intersect at the exact same point..

I wasn't lucky on 2m but I was a bit more successful on data and tuned to the PSK part of the 6m band just in time to catch a French station signing off with Tim, G4VXE. I managed QSOs with Gerard F4LKG and George EA4GB but I don't think many stations were listening because my CQs went unanswered.

It seems as if the 2013 Sporadic-E season is off to a good start!

Spring is here!

Testing a new build of WSJTX for K1JT I hopped on to 10m and was surprised to see a strong signal. It soon revealed itself to be SM6NZV who gave me a +8dB report on my 5 watts.

This reminded me that it is May 1 today, the start of Spring and usually also the start of the Sporadic-E season. I tuned around on 6m and heard a couple of weak stations on my dipole, also a couple of stronger GMs working stations I could not hear.

I thought about installing the SDR-4+ as a panadapter for the K3 which had been one of the things I had intended to use it for. But something was amiss and I didn't have control of the receiver's frequency. I think the settings had got hosed, probably when I was playing around with using a USB DVB dongle as an SDR. I have no idea how to get it working again and I started getting stressed about it so I decided to abandon the idea.

SDRs are not for me, or at least not those that use a PC for a user interface. Windows is just too fragile, though if Linux is any better it's only because there are fewer things to install on it in the first place!

Instead I will set up scanning on the K3 to scan a section of the 6m band. I always forget how to do this so I had to dig out the manual. Load the start frequency into VFO A and the end frequency in VFOB, make sure the mode and frequency are what you want and store it in a memory. I used memory 6 for 6m scanning.

To start a scan you just recall memory 6 (M>V, 6) and press and hold SCAN. I'll probably forget that sequence of button presses as well so I looked up the CAT commands in the K3 Programmers Reference (SWT23;SWT29;SWH41;) and stored it in a KComm shortcut. I'll probably make one for 2m as well though the chances of hearing any 2m Es up here are slim indeed. Last year I don't think here was a single opening that extended this far north on 2m.

DXMaps needs your support!

The DXMaps website run by Gabriel EA6VQ needs your support. This is the site that plots contacts spotted to the DX Cluster on a map, band by band, to show propagation in real-time. It is especially invaluable during the summer Sporadic-E season to track the rapidly-moving band openings.

DXMaps plots DX contacts band by band in real time

The trouble with any web site is that if it becomes very popular the costs of running it grow beyond what most people can afford as a hobby. According to EA6VQ the cost of a new dedicated server for the site will be $250 a month. So he is asking users to become "supporter users" by donating $33 US per year. But any donation is welcome.

If you are an active operator, especially on six metres and up, you will know how invaluable DXMaps.com is. Hopefully hams will step up to the plate and send Gabriel a donation.

Double-hop Es?

Thursday brought more great 10m propagation. Take a look at the screen-grab below.

10m WSPR signals received on G4ILO's attic dipole

The bright trace at the top right is the 10 watt signal of W3CSW at 11dB over noise. That is one of the strongest WSPR traces I've ever seen, and definitely the strongest signal from a station outside Europe. I think it has to be double-hop Sporadic-E propagation. It is interesting that my previous spot of the same station was 11dB below the noise. My 2 watts produced a positive result from his side as well.

Tuning around the 10m band and there was not the wall of loud signals that such good propagation would suggest. A couple of good old boys from Mississippi and Tennessee were chewing the rag, oblivious to the fact that their signals were bending S meter needles thousands of miles away. But apart from those few stations there was an absence of signals. A station I worked called CQ with no takers for some time afterwards. I tried CQing myself, with no result. To me this also shows that the enhanced propagation was very selective, supporting the theory that it was Sporadic-E propagation.

10m signals spotted by G4ILO, 27/9/2012

I did make a couple more SSB contacts but once again the digital sector provided the best returns for my efforts.

There is yet more interesting 10m propagation today. I have already spotted stations from VK2 and from Thailand. It's a shame you can't WSPR and operate on the same band at the same time. Or rather, it's a shame that I can't. So I'll switch between modes, running WSPR when I'm not actually in the shack and able to use the keyboard or mic.

Now that's what I call an opening!

2m on 1-7-2012 at 10:20z from DX Sherlock

Going on right now, on 2m. Why don't we get such openings here?

6m WSPR

On 10th June DX Sherlock showed that a big Sporadic E opening was in progress. The red lines showing contact paths stopped tantalizingly short of north-west Cumbria, unfortunately.

I listened on 10m but I didn't hear the S9+ signals such an opening would suggest so I thought I would do some WSPR on 10m, moving to 6m if the 10m signals suggested the skip would be short enough. They eventually did, as DX Sherlock indicated the lift was getting stronger. I moved to 6m, running 5W to the attic multi-band dipole, and eventually spotted or was spotted by stations as far afield as Austria, Spain and Morocco.

During the peak of the opening I broke off from WSPR to tune the bands and make a few contacts. On 10m I worked TM210VH - a special call commemorating 210 years since the birth of Victor Hugo. I made contacts into Italy, Switzerland and France on 6m as well.

Seeing some massively strong signals now on 10m WSPR so time to check out 6m I think!

First 6m Sporadic-E

On Sunday afternoon, while the WPX contest was still on, DX Sherlock sent me an email to say that there was a possibility of Sporadic-E propagation on 4m from my location. Getting equipped for 4m is something I'm going to have to leave for another year - right now I'm not steady enough on my feet to go clambering about in the attic making additions to my antenna farm. But I do have a 6m antenna, though it's only a dipole. The KX3 was plugged into it, so I had a tune around 6m, heard a few stations and managed to work OK2OV with 59 reports both ways. Not bad for 10W to an attic dipole.

Station of OK2OV, Czech Republic (from qrz.com)

I was quite tired after my session in the CQ WW WPX contest so I called it a day. The following morning DX Sherlock sent another email alert to say there was possible Sporadic-E on 6m. I quickly switched the KX3 on and sure enough, there was a big Sporadic-E opening in progress. I made 18 contacts in all into France, Spain, Italy and Slovenia and heard OK2OV for a second time. Some of the signals were absolutely enormous and I received 59+ signal reports. This was with 10W of SSB to a dipole, remember.

Hopefully there will be more Sporadic-E fun before the end of summer.

First Sporadic-E of 2012

A DX Sherlock VHF propagation alert popped into my mailbox this afternoon to warn me about a possible Sporadic-E opening on 6 metres.

6m Sporadic-E opening 29 Apr 2012

My K3 was WSPRing on 10m at the time and when I went to look several new stations had been spotted indicating the presence of short skip propagation.

10m WSPR spots at G4ILO

I switched to 6m but very few WSPR stations were active and no spots were made or received. I tuned the receiver and heard a weak Polish station on SSB but the opening was over and no contacts were made.

Still, it is good to see some activity on the "magic band." Things can only get better!

Four metres

There are a number of things I'd like to do radio-wise this year. One of them is to get equipped for SSB on four metres.

I have spent quite a lot over the last two or three years on 2m SSB and have very few contacts to show for it. My QTH in the Cockermouth Black Hole seems to be prevented by the Lake District mountains from receiving good signals from other English stations by normal propagation. I don't even experience much in the way of tropo openings here. The only real 2m DX I have worked are a handful of Sporadic-E (Es) contacts into Spain and Portugal. One thing I have learned is that 144MHz Es, which is a pretty rare thing in any case, is considerably rarer the further north you get. I was ill and recovering from my brain operation during the peak of the Es season last year but as far as I can tell from DX Sherlock no Sporadic-E openings on 2m reached this far north during 2011 so I didn't actually miss anything.

Six metres is another matter. I have made lots of contacts on the Magic Band even though my 6m antenna is just the addition of two quarter-wave wire elements to my multi-band attic dipole. Four metres won't be open as often as Six but it should sustain Sporadic-E propagation a lot more often than Two does. And now that many European countries have granted their amateurs 4m allocations I think there could be a good chance of working some summertime DX.

The plan depends on my finding space in my attic antenna farm for a 4m antenna. One of the first home improvements Olga and I will make this year is to replace the central heating boiler and we're advised that the most efficient types available now heat the water on demand and don't need a header tank or pipes in the loft. I'm a bit apprehensive about letting workmen loose in the attic when I'm not sure whether I'm capable of moving around safely up there to check my antennas are OK and repair any damage. But getting rid of the tank and copper pipes will make a bit more space for the antennas and hopefully allow me to mount a 4m Moxon on the rotator where the 2m one currently is.

I will also need a radio for 4m SSB. I guess I'm looking at getting a Spectrum Communications transverter for this. Probably a ready built one as I'm not really sure I can manage to assemble that complex a kit any more. I wonder if anyone has successfully modified an Elecraft XV50 for 70MHz?

VHF NFD washout

Conditions could hardly have been worse for the RSGB's VHF Field Day contest this weekend. Yesterday I worked a few southern Scottish portables on 2m and 6m, plus the Lincoln Radio Club station G5FZ/P on 2m, and that was that. There did not appear to be a shred of Sporadic-E on either 2m or 6m, according to DX Sherlock. 6m was so quiet my K3 S-meter wasn't even moving.

Today when I turned on the radio I tuned both 2m and 6m without hearing a single signal. The map on the right probably shows why. We awoke to heavy rain and gale force winds, and I immediately thought of those poor guys on hilltop sites with their guyed poles supporting their beam antennas. If the wind didn't force them to take the antennas down I dare say the rain and the poor propagation made them decide they might just as well give up.

This has been a really disappointing year for me too, VHF-wise. After working Spain and Portugal on 2m on two separate occasions last year - the last being exactly one year ago - I improved my antenna by 3dB and my output power by 6dB in the hope of doing better during this year's season. But I have worked nothing and as far as I know the sporadic-E this year has hardly been heard this far north. DX Sherlock showed that a couple of well-sited northerly stations managed to make a few contacts a few weeks ago and I fleetingly heard a station from Romania complete a contact and call CQ at that time, but that was that.

Something is becoming clear to me that I never realized when I lived in the south, which is that just a couple of degrees of latitude can make a huge difference to the amount of Sporadic-E you get. The season isn't over now but it must be on the wane and I'm soon going to be away from the radio for a couple of weeks, so it's looking as if 2010 is going to pass for me without any 2m Sporadic-E DX.

888 miles using a hand-held

This afternoon I made my first DX contact using a hand-held radio. It was a fine, warm day, so after lunch I left Olga doing things in the garden and went for a stroll with the H-520 10m FM radio. I took a footpath through fields to the north of the town that led up to the Carlisle road. It's quite high up there, with great views down into the town and to the mountains beyond. However I was only carrying what would fit in my pockets, so the camera got left behind.

I used to take a 2m radio up there but I don't think I ever made a contact so I lost interest. The other problem with that path is that you sometimes have to run the gauntlet of a herd of cattle. In the UK it's illegal to put a bull into a field through which is a public right of way. However there is no such restriction on cows. They can be quite inquisitive, and there have been a few cases recently of people being knocked down and injured while walking through a field of cattle. It is quite frightening being followed across a field at less than the safe stopping distance by a couple of hundred tons of beefburgers in the making, as happened to Olga and I a couple of years ago. Shouting "horseradish sauce" at them has no effect at all!

Today, fortunately, the bovine creatures kept out of my way. I found a suitable operating spot, put the whip antenna on the Intek and started calling CQ. After a few minutes I had a call from Zdenek OK1AQW, coincidentally the same station that got away from me yesterday. Today he was strength 9 on the S meter, the same as Roger G0MWE had been from just a few miles away. We moved off the calling frequency and completed a solid 5 minute QSO, kept short only because Zdenek was receiving a lot of interference from other stations on the same frequency.

My report was initially 57, but was amended to 59 dropping to 51. At one point Zdenek informed me that I was coming over another British station that was calling on the frequency. He was running 100W to a quarter wave vertical and I think he was a bit surprised to hear I was running only 2.5W to a 140cm telescopic whip!

Incidentally it turns out OK1AQW doesn't live near Prague at all as I wrote yesterday. His QRZ.com page is wrong. He is actually more than 100km east of Prague, about 10km from the Polish border, in locator JO80eb. I calculate that to be a distance of 888 miles or 1,430km. Not bad for a voice contact using a battery powered hand-held radio and whip antenna. Don't you just love Sporadic E?

I didn't manage any other contacts. I heard DO5DGH calling CQ repeatedly but he didn't hear me. But this was a nice taste of what is possible. Some people might wonder why someone who owns nice radios like a K3 and even an FT-817 should put so much effort into trying to make contacts using a modified hand-held CB but I think to talk to someone direct using a battery powered self contained hand-held radio, without the aid of a satellite, a repeater or internet linking, is the ultimate challenge and far more exciting than anything I could achieve even if I had the full legal power, a tower and a beam!

Fun on 10m

Another glorious day and Olga and I took a picnic lunch up to Watch Hill. We go there not because it is a SOTA summit but because it is near home, a nice walk, not a steep climb (so Olga is happy to come with me) and one of the easiest operating sites for me to reach when I want to get away from all the electronic QRN I'm plagued with at home. Unfortunately there isn't a picnic table up there and I haven't yet found a way to support the MP-1 antenna on a bare hilltop. Using a right-angled PL-259 adapter and a 259 to 3/8 adapter on the back of the FT-817 only works if you have a level surface to put the radio on and no breeze. So despite taking them with me I wasn't able to get any use out of them. No doubt a photo tripod would do the job but that is too much ironmongery for me.

I did also take the Intek H-520 Plus and a couple of BNC mounted whip antennas but although there clearly was propagation on 10m I didn't manage to work anything. I did hear something puzzling though. After one call on 29.600 I heard what I'm sure was a native English speaking voice announced something on the lines that this was the EA????? repeater. Unfortunately I'm getting increasingly slow witted these days so I don't remember the exact announcement nor the full call and I didn't hear it again. 29.600 is supposed to be the 10m FM calling frequency and not a repeater output so what could it possibly have been?

Back home later in the afternoon and VHFDX.net showed that there was a big Sporadic-E opening on 6m and even 2m in Eastern Europe. I decided to try 10m which seems to be the neglected band and managed to make several contacts including a new country for me, OD5NH in Beirut, Lebanon.

10m open to the north

Once again, WSPR is revealing the existence of consistent propagation paths every day on 10m between Iceland (TF), the Faroes (OY) and northern Norway (LA/LB) and the UK and north-west Europe when there is no Sporadic-E and no other propagation except over very short distances between closely located stations. This has occurred even during periods of zero sunspots.

I'm guessing that because we have only in the last few weeks had a large number of WSPR monitors on 10m because of the Sporadic-E season, no-one has previously observed it. But I'm surprised at the lack of comment about it. Perhaps this is a phenomena known to everyone but me, in which case I'd welcome some enlightenment.

Fun on 10 FM

As some of you know, I'm a bit of a sucker for hand-held radios. Whilst browsing eBay I'd often come across the Intek H-520 Plus CB hand-held and thought what a nice looking rig it was and wouldn't it be nice if it could be converted to amateur 10m usage. A couple of days ago I stumbled across a site that gave the details of how to convert it for amateur 10m use so I decided to order one. It arrived this morning.

Never has a radio been taken apart so soon after its arrival. (Real hams don't care about warranties!) Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find again the site that had the modification information, but I vaguely remembered the details. Beneath the battery compartment there is a loop of wire. Snip it and push the ends apart. I'm not sure what that does. Now put the batteries back in and turn on the radio whilst depressing the Menu button. You can then select the option "Po" by pressing the down arrow button. Press Menu again, then press and hold the up arrow button until the frequencies displayed are in the 29MHz region. You now have a 10m FM / AM hand held.

Whilst I was doing this I was WSPRing on 10m and I saw some very strong traces from stations in Germany indicating that there was short-skip Sporadic-E on 10m. Were conditions such that I would actually be able to make some contacts with the new radio today?

The antenna supplied with the Intek H-520 Plus is about 15cm long so I suspect it will be less than useless for making any DX contacts. Clearly what I need in order to use this as a portable radio is some kind of long BNC 10m antenna, but at the moment I don't have one. The H-520 comes with a "car kit" which screws to the bottom of the radio and allows you to power it from an external supply and connect an antenna with a PL-259 plug. So I hooked it up to the shack supply and the attic dipole.

I tuned around and there seemed to be things going on, so I found a clear frequency, 29.520MHz, and called CQ. After a few seconds jack PE1JRP called CQ on the same frequency. I called him and we made contact. He found my signal was up and down, as I did his, but he gave me a 53 report. He said that Leo PA3ELQ was waiting on the frequency and he then called, for my second contact. My report in this case was 57. They were both pretty impressed with my signal running - as I thought - 4W output.

I decided to check the H-520 Plus on my power meter and found that, far from putting out the advertised 4 watts, it was only radiating a whisker over 2. I took it down to the CB channels and even there it was giving barely 3W output. I also recalled that the web page that I could no longer find mentioned the need to turn up the deviation for 10 FM use.

I managed to locate and download a service manual for the H-520 Pro and this gave a procedure for adjusting the power. I had to turn the power control pot all the way up and I still only got about 3.6W on battery power (and just about 4W when running from the car adapter.) That's good enough, though. From the block diagram I also was able to identify the FM modulation pot and turned that up a bit, though neither of the Dutch stations had complained about my audio. In the picture above, the red circle shows the wire loop that you cut, the green circle shows the power out pot and the blue circle the modulation control.

With the radio back together I hooked it up to the dipole again and worked Oliver DH5PK, receiving a 53 report. I am quite happy with my three contacts considering that I only opened the box after lunch and the radio spent much of the time disassembled. I saw from VHFDX.info that there was a great opening on 6 metres at the same time, but making contacts with less than 4W of FM is more challenging.

What I'm hoping, of course, is that I can make some contacts like this using the H-520 Plus as a hand held radio with a whip antenna!

Sporadic-E action

The screengrab below, from WSPR at 0815 this morning, shows just how selective Sporadic-E propagation can be. For a change, G4ILO is hearing and being heard by all the European stations while those in the south of England aren't getting anything.

Look, too, at all those lines going off the top of the map to OY1OF. I wish I could understand the propagation. It appears that if you like the 10m band, the best place to live is the Faroe Islands!

Ash scatter?

For the last week or so I have been using the K3 for WSPR on 10m to detect the signs of any Sporadic-E openings. Since the opening of May 3rd there has been nothing very exciting to report, though it has been interesting to see spots of stations previously never heard suddenly appear, often at good strength, as a patch of ionization materializes in just the right place.

What has been intriguing over the last few days is the consistent appearance of spots involving OY1OF throughout the day, often with stations in the UK but also with those in Holland, France or Germany.

The distance is too far, obviously, for the ground wave propagation that is often the only propagation reported between closely located stations. The spots are too frequent and too widespread to be Sporadic-E. And they surely cannot be regular F2 layer reflections, as the MUF in this part of the world at this point in the solar cycle is still far too low (the F2 critical frequency is around 4MHz according to the IPS Radiowave Propagation Center.)

Could it be scatter from the ash of the Icelandic volcano?

First 6m Sporadic-E contacts of 2010

I spent the morning building this constant current charging circuit on to the circuit board of the junk Motorola charger I bought on eBay. I also made a power lead so that it is powered by my K2 power supply, eliminating the need for yet another wall-wart. The charger was supplied with a UK type switched mode power supply rated at 12V 1000mA. In view of the "quality" of the charger itself it is unlikely that I would want to use the wall-wart that came with it for anything, but surprisingly when I tested it I couldn't find any obvious interference. As I have said before, the electrical noise level here is so high that something would have to be pretty bad for me to notice it, but that was a device which I expected to be pretty bad.

As I was checking the bands for new unwanted noises I heard a CW signal on the 6m band. That turned out to be EB1EHO, whom I worked for my first Sporadic-E contact of the year. I spent an hour or so on the band and worked several stations on the west coast of Spain and one in Portugal, CT1ANO.

As you can see from the DX Sherlock map, the reflective Sporadic-E cloud appeared to be located somewhere over South Wales. I did hear a Scottish station working EA6/M0DLL on the island of Menorca. The DX was right down in the noise and not copyable on my dipole but might have been workable if I had a beam. So clearly there was Sporadic-E about elsewhere.

This opening was a nice treat for a Bank Holiday and I hope is an indicator of things to come this year.

Detecting Sporadic-E on 2m

We are entering the Sporadic-E season, the favourite time of the year for those who enjoy operating the VHF bands. As Roger G3XBM suggested today, more stations this year will be using WSPR on the 10m and 6m bands, so many openings may be detected that would otherwise be missed. I am WSPRing on 10m at the moment, and will probably move up to 6m later on once 10m starts opening on a regular basis.

However, my first love will always be 2m. From this QTH surrounded by hills Sporadic-E is the only type of propagation that allows me to work DX on that band. On 2m, Sporadic-E openings are much rarer because much smaller patches of the Sporadic-E clouds are dense enough to reflect signals at this frequency. This makes propagation between two points on 2m much more fleeting. A station can be 59+ one minute and gone the next, which makes it essential to keep QSOs short and sweet: report, locator, and name only if you are sure you have got the time.

Some people are planning to use WSPR on 2m as well, but because of the fleeting nature of propagation I am not convinced that the 2 minute periods of WSPR make it the most appropriate method of detecting propagation on this band. I think it might be more fruitful to monitor 144.8MHz which is the APRS frequency in Europe.

APRS packets take only a second or two to send, so you don't need propagation to be good for two whole minutes to receive one. Packets do need to be received clearly, but the "strong or gone" nature of Sporadic-E on 2m suits that quite well. The main difficulty is knowing the location of the station that sent the packet you heard, since it could well be a digipeater retransmitting a packet sent from somewhere else.

There used to be a website that displayed a propagation map based on APRS packets received. But in the last few days it appears to have gone QRT, which is rather a shame. But if you are in a location that doesn't normally hear much APRS activity, even just hearing a number of signals going "braaap" on 144.8MHz could be the alert you need that some unusual propagation is about.

If anyone has any other ideas on how to improve the detection of Sporadic-E on 2m without sitting in front of the receiver listening to band noise for hours on end I'd be interested to hear them. If you aren't familiar with this mode of propagation and how it works and would like to learn more about it then there is an article about Sporadic-E on my website.

First sporadic-E of 2010

I heard a little bit of sporadic-E propagation on 10m this afternoon. Tuning around the beacon segment I heard the beacon DK0TEN on 28.257.5MHz quite strongly for about a minute before it faded away.

There have even been some contacts made and beacons heard on 6 metres, according to VHFDX.info. Let's hope for some good openings on VHF this year.