Was it just me or was HF dead today ?
20M was very quiet and same for 17M.
I was up W2/GA-175 and I the only contact I made was with VA6FUN (thanks Mike !)…
I heard some UK stations on 14.342.5 GW4BVE (I think) and another station talking about SOTA News … but they could not hear me. I had fun and I get to go back up this hill this year and try to qualify it again Hopefully I’ll get the summit qualified next time if HF co-operates !
VHF was quiet too … but I did not put the beam up… I was ready to leave at that point.
In reply to K1YMI:
Hi Andrew…thank you for being there! It sure was tough copy on HF today…and I was surprised when I heard your signal come up out of my noise floor! I guess my Spiderbeam did it’s job! What power level were you running?
HF has been pretty poor over here lately, & with my limited antenna setup I can only work the US on 20m when conditions are quite good, or at the right time of day /night.
I normally only run 100 Watts, & have a very high noise level on receive which does limit what I can work. I do listen when a SOTA activation is alerted / spotted regardless of whether conditions are good or not, as sometimes HF does bring surprising openings
Maybe it’s not an option, but a call on CW could possibly be a good idea. I am not an expert at CW by any means & I do prefer SSB, but CW would help those that don’t have such good stations on certain bands.
Keep at it, I too have tried for a trans-atlantic SOTA contact from a summit, without success, but it is only a matter of time
The red areas are those currently experiencing poor propagation. (This is a real time image if you click the link you may get a different image if conditions change.)
In reply to MM0FMF:
Hi Andy. Thanks a lot for the link. I am located a bit south of Tromsø (red spot top to the left). The strongest signal I received on 40 mtr this morning was s 5. In the moment I cannot read any SSB-station on 40 at all. Normally at this time of the day I receive many many European sigs here with 59+20 or stronger.
The situation has been poor for several weeks.
73 Mike
In reply to VA6FUN:
Mike, I was running 5W. I really do need to relearn CW. I’ve not done it about 20 years… maybe should be this years project
Yes, your Spiderbeam certainly does the job… I need to look into building one.
In reply to K1YMI:
WOW…only 5 watts…with the band conditions it’s amazing we made the trip at all! What kind of antenna were you using on the summit?? I’m a CW rookie myself…finally buckled down and learned it for making SOTA QSO’s…joined the SKCC to see if I can improve my copy!
From the same website (http://www.ips.gov.au) comes their HF propagation predictions:
"Last updated 30 May 2010 23:45 UT
Latitude Band
Date Low Middle High
31 May Normal-fair Normal-fair Fair-poor
01 Jun Normal Normal-fair Fair
02 Jun Normal Normal Normal
COMMENT: As anticipated normal to poor HF conditions were
observed on 30 May due to a rise in the geomagnetic activity
levels. Interferences due to the presence of mild to strong
sporadic E-layers were also observed at times during the day.
HF conditions may show mild to moderate degradations on
31 May due to possible continued enhancement in geomagnetic
activity during this period. HF conditions may gradually
return to normal over the following two days. "
In reply to MM0FMF:
Andy,
This is a great website. Thanks for sharing this.
It was funny as when I switched the radio on 20m I double checked my antenna was connected and configured correctly as even the background noise was less than normal.
Mike … I use a Buddipole configured in the “versaTee Vertical” configuration… ie a coil and a vertical element with an elevated counterpoise. It seems to work extremely well and is very quick and easy to assemble. Also does not take up much room on the summit.
I used to use an end fed 18 metre dipole, but on some of the summits in the Adirondacks I found it was hard to get in the air due to the dense pine trees on some of them. It’s far easier with the vertical.
In reply to K1YMI:
I couldn’t be on the radio today Andrew…next time…
But check out the dxatlas software system at www.dxatlas.com
If you run Hamcap, ionoprobe, and dxatlas (they work together) you can get a wonderful globe overlaid with freq info of your choice and with charts of forecasts for any prefix you want for all bands and it is all updated in real time with NASA data. If you also have bandmaster you get the dxcluster overlaid on the globe which you can spin around and manipulate…very handy.
I was out on Montauk Point (the eastern edge of Long Island, NY) on Sunday and couldn’t work or hear much at all on HF despite a very low noise level.
But oh my, have you guys been working 6m lately? On the 29th I worked 3 or 4 countries with 100w to a 6m loop.
Hopefully I’ll get the summit qualified next time if HF co-operates !