Light at the End of the Tunnel?

On the Bands
201

Hi Ron,

The biggest disappointment, must be the 10m band. The wonderful 10m FM, DX contacts into North America, working with just a few Watts appear to be a thing of the past. Not even a combination of GW/NW-070 Great Ormes wonderful take-off, seawater and the Antron-99 can make any impact.

This morning, I alerted for G/SP-013 Gun, however, with the SFI index down to a crippling 74, there was little hope of working many chasers in EU let alone any DX. My self spot for 20m appeared at 0544z and after 10 minutes of calling, up popped Steve VK7CW for my first contact of the morning. Steve was weak but workable and after three or four attempts, signal reports were completed.Trade picked up and despite the wicked QSB, a run of 53 calls were logged, the best of it Alex R0AAT, in Achinsk, Siberia.

Reading the comments and concerns of both chaser and activators about keeing the 2m band alive, I have carried the colinear with me on most of my recent activation. This morning, I stuck the X-200 into the Hawthorn tree and made 19 contacts, the best of it Darren M0ODC/P who was working from his canal boat in Stratford-upon-Avon.

What can you say about sunspots and propagation? I would have bet my house against working Tasmania and Asia today, but there you have it.

Thanks to all the chasers


73 Mike
2E0YYY

2 Likes
202

Excellent results as we’ve come to expect from you Mickey. I thought I was being over-optimistic going for a QRP activation on 17m on Tuesday evening around 7pm, but was pleasantly surprised to be called by chasers across Europe. And when my activation concluded with 2 QSOs into the USA on 5 watts from my 817, I was gobsmacked!

So you’re right, you never know. BTW, what’s the condition of the path up Gun today? What is needed at present - trainers, boots, wellies or waders?

203

I wonder with the findings we are getting, we can challenge the commonly held understanding that a low Solar Flux Index always means bad radio conditions? It seems from both Tom and Mike’s recent experiences an SFI in the low 70s is not a block to catching some DX contacts.

Ed.

204

No.

1 Like
205

There is always the chance of some anomalous propagation, but the commonly held understanding about the link between low SFI and poor conditions will usually hold true or we would have many more reports of unexpected propagation.

Brian

206

Hi Brian,

20 m RS yesterday evening. Last night at 0930 UTC - 1 1/2 hours after sunset - on 80 m I started a sked over a 500 km path with R3 conditions. In 5 minutes this had improved to Q5 then 10 minutes later the signal stepped up suddenly to 9+20 from a S7. It tailed off by some 20 dB to S9 over the next half hour. Haven’t looked at the IPS charts but another example of odd and changeable conditions.

Our newspapers now go into a recycling bin. Documents are shredded and go into a compost bin. Feeds the rhubarb, french beans, tomatoes and miscellaneous other vegetables. Salad and herb plants grown year round. Have grown both green and purple climbing beans. My wife keeps a has-been in the house. :relaxed: We have the climate to grow almost anything. OK, sub tropical and tropical plants like bananas and pineapples do struggle here.

73
Ron

207

Hi Ed,

For the commercial operators requiring 100% reliability, or listeners wanting to hear the VOA in their lounge rooms, the predictions are probably usable enough. But they are only predictions, deductions made from available evidence about happenings on a rotating sun with more variations than we actually know about.

Amateur communications have always accepted QSB, low signal:noise ratios etc and the predictions don’t tell the full story for amateur contacts. So I think we have always turned the radio on and listened to the bands, some always call a CQ anyway. Ask any 6m or 10m specialist and they will always make a call, sometimes in each of 4 or more directions, even on a “dead” band. As the saying goes, if everyone is listening, no-one gets a contact. On the other hand another saying is “you can’t work dx you can’t hear”. And also shows that these Rules of Thumb are sometimes ROT.

From departure lounge at Dubai.

73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2UH

2 Likes
208

Well, the alarm clock went off at 0430 local time. A very nice morning and clear drive to G/SP-017 Billinge Hill, which was covered in a shade under one hour, despite the road works that have been on the M6 motorway, for about the last 25 years.

After deciding to add 4 metres to my repertoire, the load I had to carry was even heavier than usual. Still, Billinge Hill is only a short 15 minute walk and I was set-up, self spotted on 20m and QRV at 0545z. Trade from EU was steady with Ed DD5LP first to make my log, quickly followed by another 38 contacts, despite the QSB trying to spoil the party. Amongest them a very nice contact with Simon G4TJC.

For sure, there was going to be no repeat of my VK7CW contact of last week. However, true to form, the Antron-99, pulled yet another rabbit out of the hat. Not VK7, but the rare Canadian Province of VE7, British Columbia, in the shape of Mike VE7MHC for a very nice 7300Km contact and a new SOTA VE province for me. I logged a few more contacts on 20m before giving 17m a try, where just three contacts were logged.

Next up, was a visit to 4m FM, however, I don’t think the rig is in particularly good shape. It seems to be putting out half the 25 watts it should do and to make matters worse there was some sort of problem with the antenna. Still, nice to get 5 contacts in the log, before returning to the 20m band for one last shout.

An interesting activation, which produced just the one DX contact and one s2s with Terja LA8BCA/P, activating LA/HM-135.

71 Contacts for the activation.

63 contacts on 20m
3 contacts on 17m
5 contacts on 4m FM.

Thanks to the VK guys for trying to work me, it just wasn’t to be this morning :frowning:

73 Mike
2E0YYY

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5 Likes
209

Hi Mike,

We appreciate you activating at a time when propagation might be possible. I could hear some chasers on 20 m but not even a murmur from you. No proper ant on 17 m here. My sloping dipole is a just a noise source. Needs to be horizontal to give some cancellation of local noise.

Still you don’t know if you don’t go.

Thanks.

73
Ron
VK3AFW

1 Like
210

Hi Ron,
Thanks for taking the time to have a listen.

Ernie VK3DET heard the VE7 side of my contact with Mike VE7MHC and reported him as 5/9 in Victoria. He wasn’t as good as that in the UK but easily workable. A glance at Mikes QRZ page shows quite a set-up VE7MHC - Callsign Lookup by QRZ Ham Radio

Also, last week, Jon VK6JON, who is currently residing in VK7, made a contact from his car with a GW station on the 40m band, at 0600z. Maybe some food for thought there


While you and Paul VK5PAS were over in VK9, I did a number of activations, looking for an s2s with Norfolk Island. It seems just few EU stations were worked and IIRC, nothing from the UK?

Being a glutton for punishment, I may pop out for an early moring activation, in the next day or so, in the forlorn hope of a DX fix.

73 Mike
2E0YYY

211

Current Solar / propagation conditions :

YUK !

212

I planned to activate something this morning but heavy rain put paid to that idea.

However, I took a look at the WX forecast this afternoon and although it looked like it was going to be very windy as well as overcast, it was predicted to remain dry. So I headed to my local summit of G/SP-013 Gun and that’s exactly how I found it.

The solar forecast was pretty much dreadful and working anything was not going to be easy


On Wednesday, I had given the 17m band a try and it was in pretty poor shape. As the radio was already tuned to this frequecy, that’s were I started this afternoon. A self spot at 1226z was sent and a CQ put out. After 5 minutes, I got my first call from JosĂ© EB2JU. Two minutes later, a great contact from Bob AC1Z was in my log! Bob was the only DX I would work today. Two more Spanish stations were worked and that was the end of the 17m party.

Time for a visit to the 20m band and once again, this was a struggle with QSB being the arch enemy. I can’t ever recall working so hard for just 23 contacts on the 20m band. The only saving grace was, I found three summit to summit contacts amongst them. IK5XTC, activating I/TO-320, LA8BCA activating LA/OL-215 and finally, SA7LOO, activating SM/JL-019.

A total of just 27 contacts for the activation :frowning:

The higher HF frequencies are somewhat challenging, to say the least!

Thanks to the callers that made the trip.

73 Mike

213

Hi Mike,

I did an activation on Friday morning our time. I was copying a OZ1 station on 40 m around 0100 UTC on 40 m. I did call him but he wasn’t able to copy my call. I was back to 5 W on the FT817 rather than 18 W on the X108 used on my last 6 activations. Power does matter.

An hour earlier there were many weak stations on 40 m, speaking languages other than English.

I had no propagation to stations any closer than 500 km on 40 m
 I scored only one marginal QSO to VK6 on 20 m (2,700 km approx).

Re NI, no UK stations worked as far as I know. We were as disappointed as you guys were.

73

Ron
VK3AFW

1 Like
214

Hi Mike, congratulations on your SOTA DX success. What rig and power are you using and which band(s) do you find most successful for Australia? I’m hoping to try an early activation of Gt Orme next week. Will probably use an EFHW with tuner and FT-857. Any advice would be much appreciated.

215

Hi Andy,

GW/NW-070 Great Orme! One of the real gems in North Wales. Nice drop off and surrounded by seawater, it don’t get much better. A summit which is capabale of producing huge quantities of DX. Sadly though, not right now :frowning:

My advice is not to activate this one from the trig point (Piccadily Circus springs to mind in the summer), but walk across the the car park as far as you can and take the short walk up the bank in front of you. This is well within the AZ and there are plenty of fence posts to bungee an antenna.

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Recently, conditions on the 20m band have been rubbish for working VK long path, however, there has been some improvement in the SFI since I was last there a few weeks ago. Therefore, with your end fed and 857, you may just get lucky and work one or two.

Now the bad news, for VK action, realistically, you’ll need to be QRV at around 0600z which is 0700 local time. Self spotting is a piece of cake, no phone issuse. Make sure you have an alert posted on SOTAwatch the day before your visit, as this will almost certainly have some of the VK regular chasers listening out for you.

You, will have little trouble qualifying the summit with EU contacts, even with the poor HF conditions right now and DX surprises often pop up. On a recent Gt. Orme activation, I nicked VE8 with an armchair copy, never easy to find from a UK summit. I suspect this is one of the few SOTA summits (certainly from EU) which Antarctica has been worked.

My rig is also the 857 and an Antron-99 cb antenna, tuned up via the auto tuner. Normally, I run anything between 30-50 Watts. Of course, your batteries capacity will be the determining factor on how much power you wish to run versus the length of the activation.

Finally, if you’re really lucky, the Pay and Display parking machine may still be out of order and parking will be free :wink:

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Have fun


73 Mike
2E0YYY

216

Thanks for coming back to me Mike, I’ll give it a go. Antarctica would be nice, I’ve never spoken to a penguin (though I suppose they’re hibernating at the moment).

No problem Mike, the main concern is to be ready for work at 0900 in Rhyl, so an early start is called for.

Fingers crossed!

217

VE8? Do you mean VP8 Mike?

Edit: No, it seems it was VE8GER. That’s Canada though, not Antarctica.

218

Picky Tom! What’s one letter and a few thousand miles between friends? :upside_down:

219

Indeed, perhaps I should clear things up, Andy. A couple of weeks ago, I worked VE8GER a Canadian Province that’s not heard very often and a couple of years ago, I worked Mikhail RI1ANT on the Mirny base Antarctica both from Great Orme.

I’ll be visiting North wales this week and so there’s a good chance I’ll activate Great Orme, depending on work commitments and WX.

73 Mike

220

I never doubted you Mike. Good luck with the wx